




ill 




WOODROW WILSON 



" One or two elections don't count in a lifetime, and those of us who 
helieve in things have enlisted for the rest of our lives. Do the gentle- 
men who for the sake of maintaining their own power resist these 
changes suppose that we are going to sit in the game for any shorter 
time than they are? Whatever maybe the limitations of individual 
human life, there are men so moved by conviction, so confident in the 




Rose, Photographer, Princeton. 

hope of reform, so certain of the legitimate and just demands of the 
people, that they can fight these battles with the debonair air of those 
who see the future, and thus who know there is nothing that can stop 
the heroic progress of the American people in the movement toward 
the control of their own affairs." — Woodrow Wilson. 



WOODROW WILSON 

HIS CAREER, HIS STATESMANSHIP, AND 
HIS PUBLIC POLICIES 



BY 

HESTER E, HOSFORD 



SECOND EDITION. REVISED AND ENLARGED 
WITH A PREFACE BY THOMAS P. GORE 

SENATOR FROM OKLAHOMA 



WITH 16 ILLUSTRATIONS 



G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 

NEW YORK AND LONDON 

Zhe Umicfcerbocfter press 

1912 



G7 



Copyright, 1912 
HESTER E. HOSFORD 

DEC 30 191? 



"ttbe ftnfckerbocber press, flew JBorfc 



De&tcatefc 

TO THE MEMORY OF 

MY STAND-PAT ANCESTORS 

WHOSE SINCERITY I REVERE AND HONOR 

BUT WHOSE POLITICAL TEACHINGS 

I AM UNABLE TO ACCEPT 



PREFACE 

In this volume, Miss Hosford gives a just and rational 
appreciation of a great laborer and his great labors, — 
a man who embodies the spirit of true democracy and 
who stands for true reform. It presents a programme 
that is not negative, but constructive, positive, and pro- 
gressive. The book shows how theory may be reduced 
to fact and how the blossoms of promise may be made 
to ripen into the fruits of performance. It makes clear 
the interdependence of the real and the ideal ; while it will 
serve as a practical guide to practical statement. The 
citizen will secure from its perusal an ample dividend 
on the time invested. 

THOMAS P. GORE. 

Washington, D. C, 
July, 1912. 



PREFACE 

" To tell the truth simply, open 1 v. without reservation, 
is the unimpeachable first principle of all right dealing; 
and historians have no license to be quit of it. Unques- 
tionably they must tell us the truth or else get themselves 
enrolled among a very undesirable class of persons, not 
often frankly named in polite society. But the thing is 
by no means so easy as it looks. The truth of history is 
a very complex and very occult matter. It consists 
things which are invisible as well as of things which are 
visible." 

Long before Woodrow Wilson was talked of as a pros- 
pective Governor or possible President. 1 came across an 
essay, written by him. which contained the expressions 
here quoted. 

In this volume the author has made an earnest effort 
"to tell the truth"' about the public usefulness of New 
Jersey's conservative-prog ss rernor, with special 

emphasis on his official achievements both as a College 
President and as G rernor of a State where, for more 
than a half-century, the people had lacked the virility and 



viii PREFACE 

the means to assert their political independence. At 
last, the Democratic bosses miscalculated and nomi- 
nated for Governor the " Scholar in Politics," whom they 
believed to be a mere theorist, incapable of outwitting 
the practical politicians. But the people believed that 
the voice of Woodrow Wilson rang true. They elected 
him. He became their State spokesman. He stimulated 
the members of the Legislature to a consciousness of 
their responsibility, until there was enacted into law 
one of the most remarkable programs of legislation 
which has ever distinguished a single legislative session 
in this country. 

The author believes that Governor Wilson's signal 
achievement has elevated the tone of public office to 
correspond with the increasing dignity and power of the 
State and the Nation. His attitude on national political 
issues is defined in his own words. 

His long record of public service should serve as an 
index of the greater and larger achievements which he 
is qualified to render in the event of his election to the 
office of President of the United States. 

I have written this book because I believe in Woodrow 
Wilson. 

Hester E. Hosford. 

July, 1912. 



" The mere moral impulse in me is of no force unless 
it can be translated into action. It is immoral to pro- 
pose for the United States something that is not of bene- 
fit for the "whole United States. It is immoral to promote 
legislation for your business unless it is also for the in- 
terest of the rest of the country. Our government is not 
a paternal institution." — Woodrow Wilson. 



" And yet it seems to me that the only way to come 
to a common understanding is by standing up and talk- 
ing about it, and the radicalism lies in the statement of 
the fact, not in the proposal of the remedies. 

" I understand, just as you understand, that we can 
go at a too rapid or radical pace in remedying the things 
which are wrong, because the structure of society is 
made of a very delicate fibre. Interests, whether these 
gentlemen will admit it or not, are so interlaced that 
you cannot deal with one at a time without dealing with 
all of them ; we are so bound together in common causes 
of life that if you detach one part of it impression thrills 
through every part, and every sane man understands, 
therefore, that you have got to touch the body politic 
with the nice art of the prudent physician, but what 
would you say of the physician who was so prudent that 
he did not get to the bottom of the diagnosis? 

" The diagnosis is radical, but the cure is remedial ; 
the cure is conservative. I do not, for my part, think 
that the remedies applied should be applied upon a great 
theoretical scale; nobody is wise enough to have the 
absolute ' by the wool ' ; nobody is big enough, nobody 
comprehends in his single brain, no group of men com- 
prehend in their common conference all the interests in- 
volved in the great nation. You have to take item by 
item and symptom by symptom; you have got to remedy 
one thing at a time, but you must do it, not upon a prin- 
ciple of hostility, but upon a principle of reconciliation." 
— Woodkow Wilson. 



CONTENTS 
CHAPTER I 

PAGS 

MACHINE VERSUS POPULAR GOVERNMENT ... 3 

Contains a Hint of the Story which Is to Follow. 

The Political Pendulum in Representative Government 
— Classification of Democrats and Plutocrats — 
Honest Party Organization Contrasted with Corrupt 
Machine Government — Our Real Governor, a Friend 
of Organization — A Picture of Machine Government, 
Ancient and Modern — The Political Boss — A Few 
Questions for him to Answer — Students of Political 
Problems Invited to New Jersey to Study History 
— A Remarkable Governor who Kept his Pledges to 
the People — We Heard Something Drop in the State 
of New Jersey — A Fracas between the Machine State 
Chairman and the People's Governor — How it Ended 
— Our State in a Political Rut — J. Lincoln Steffens's 
Prophecy in 1905 — A Non-resident's Rebuke to New 
Jersey Citizens — Our Answer: We were Waiting 
for a Leader who Came " in a Mysterious Way " — 
He Brought with him the Light of a New Day — 
And Delivered us from the Seventeen-year Locust. 

CHAPTER II 

governor Wilson's nomination and election — 
a unique campaign 22 

A Question from the Start — Who Discovered Wood- 
row Wilson? — The American People — The Demo- 
cratic Machine Did Nominate Governor Wilson; 
but Why?— What Happened?— A Political Lion 
Came Forth, who Could not be Caged in the 



xiv CONTENTS 



State House by either Board of Guardians — The 
Man's Insight — How he Leads — What was Predicted 
from the Start by Those who were Associated with 
him in Politics — A Hint as to his Fitness — Why Did 
Dr. Wilson Consent to Become a Candidate for Gov- 
ernor? — His Speech when Nominated — The Reaction 
— A Change in the Plans of Republicans — Wood- 
row Wilson Gained Ground with Rapidity during the 
Campaign — Extracts from Campaign Speeches — Dr. 
Wilson Compared with Samson — What Horse-power 
is Woodrow Wilson? — The Pivot on which the 
Campaign Turned — The Bosses only Smiled when 
they Listened to Woodrow Wilson's Promises to the 
People — But the Overlords, not the People, Mis- 
understood him — Elected by a Plump Plurality. 

CHAPTER III 

THE SMITH-MARTINE CONTROVERSY 

A Dramatic Spectacle — What Created a Most Extra- 
ordinary Situation — A Glimpse of an Interesting 
Personage — A Few Sidelights Turned on his Po- 
litical Manoeuvres — The Man's Record as Published 
by his Contemporaries — Smithism — The People had 
Long Wanted to Start Something but they had 
Heretofore Lacked an Executive who Dared to Be a 
State Spokesman — But now Times had Changed — A 
Fearless Leader — What this Meant to the State — 
Who Were the Brave Mariners in the Storm — The 
State Schoolmaster Taught the People — His Whole 
Plea Was: "Come and Let us Reason Together" — 
The Moral Obligation and the Responsibility of a 
Great Opportunity — The Jeffersonian Quality of Gov- 
ernor-elect Wilson's Speeches during this Contest — 
The Main Facts of them Quoted — By what Standard 
Shall we Judge New Jersey's Governor? — The Gi- 
gantic Size of the Man whom he Licked — " The Big- 
gest One-man Politician in America " — After All, 
Posterity must Pronounce the Final Verdict upon 
him. 



PAGE 



CONTENTS xv 

CHAPTER IV 

PAGE 

FROM THE CLASSROOM TO THE STATE HOUSE . . .53 

A Governor who Made the Most of his Mental Dis- 
cipline — A Word-picture of Woodrow Wilson — He 
had Never Visited the Trenton Legislature, up to 
the Time of his Inauguration — A Parallelism be- 
tween his Career as Governor and his Career as an 
Educator — A Glimpse of his Ancestry — Views of a 
Conservative Southerner — Dr. Wilson's Educational 
Training — He Found Himself Early — He Practises 
Law, but Gives it up to Continue Academic Work 
— His First Book — He Enters the Teaching Profes- 
sion — He Marries a Southern Lady of Distinguished 
Family — Their Children — Dr. Wilson is Appointed 
Professor of Jurisprudence, at Princeton — His Ser- 
vices on Faculty Committees — An Exceptional Pro- 
fessor — Honored by other Universities — His Literary 
Career Continues — He is Unanimously Chosen Presi- 
dent of Princeton — Brings Order out of Academic 
Chaos — Founds Preceptorial System, which Proves 
an Innovation — His Third Stroke to Democratize the 
Institution — His First Battle for the Forces of De- 
mocracy in Conflict with Special Privilege — Because 
Wealthy Gentlemen Gave Money to Princeton, they 
Could not Dictate the Academic Policy — The Class- 
room Atmosphere must be Kept Democratic — Presi- 
dent Wilson Continued his Fight for Democratic 
Standards to the End — But the Office of College 
President Did not Afford Him Sufficient Opportunity 
to Exercise the Numerous Resources within himself 
— Naturally a Fighter for Popular Rights — He Re- 
signs the Presidency of Princeton to Accept Nomina- 
tion for Governor — Leaves University in Flourishing 
Condition — America's Foremost Living Historian — 
A Constructive Educator Becomes a Constructive 
Statesman — Translates himself with Ease from the 
World of Author's Politics to the Practical Institu- 
tion itself. 



xvi CONTENTS 

CHAPTER V 

PAGE 

KEEPING FAITH WITH THE PEOPLE . . . .85 

Zealously Desirous of Interpreting the Popular Will 
— Faith in the American People — Governor Wilson 
Did not Dragoon the New Jersey Legislature — But 
he Did Use the Preceptorial System in Dealing 
with the Side-steppers — Daylight and Fireworks-at- 
night Methods — He Stimulates the Legislators to a 
Consciousness of their Responsibility — He Leads the 
Average Citizen to Look Ahead with him — The 
Lonely Dignity of the Poor Man when he Goes to 
Vote — The Key-note of Governor Wilson's Political 
Conscience; to Study the Interest of the Whole 
People — The Function of a Legislature to Look 
after the General Good — Restores Contact between 
the People and their Representatives; How? — Gov- 
ernor Wilson Has a Way, All his Own — Only Custom 
Kept him off the Floor of the House — He Exercised 
Fearlessly his Executive Functions — There Must Be 
Some Force to Bring Public Opinion into Legisla- 
tive Business — The Initiative and Referendum Will 
Help — Wilson's Exact Position on these Measures — 
Where Are Bills Edited? — Necessity of Executive 
Leadership — Acute Consciousness of Responsibility 
— The American People Have Reason to Be Sus- 
picious — Woodrow Wilson Grouped with the Elect 
Immortals of the Republic — And a Governor who 
Could Discipline a New Jersey Legislature ought to 
Be. 

CHAPTER VI 

REFORM LEGISLATION 101 

The People and the Legislators Overwhelmed with the 
Programme of Legislation Seriously Proposed in 
Governor Wilson's Inaugural Message — But the 
Greatest Surprise of All Was that he Meant Every 



CONTENTS xvii 



Word he Said — A Six-cylinder Type of Governor 
Strikes Trenton with a Bang; and it Certainly Is 
a Slow Town — Some Things Started — A Drastic 
Public Utilities Law Enacted in Spite of Protests 
from Corporations — And there Has Been Something 
Doing Since it Went into Effect — A Few Results — 
The Employers' Liability Law — A Real Direct 
Primary Law which Bade Defiance to Machines and 
Bosses — A Corrupt Practices Act which Reinforces 
the Election Law and Does Away with " Spook " 
Voters and Dishonest Elections — It Keeps Both the 
Voters and the Candidates for Office Straight — A 
Commission Form of Government Act — Numerous 
Other Measures Passed which Introduced Modern 
Methods in Place of Obsolete Relics of Past Years 
— One of the Most Remarkable Records of Legisla- 
tion that Has Ever Distinguished a Single Legisla- 
tive Session in this Country — J. Lincoln Steffens's 
Prophecy Fulfilled. 

CHAPTER VII 

ELEVATION OP THE TONE OP PUBLIC OFFICE . . . 116 

Necessity of Inducing the Right Men to Become Po- 
litical Leaders in Order that we may Provide a 
Stimulus for our Legislators — What Is the Greatest 
Service which Governor Wilson has Rendered to the 
People of New Jersey? — An Opinion Ventured Con- 
cerning the Final Judgment which Historians will 
Pass on Woodrow Wilson — He Bears the Distinction 
of Being the First Governor to Insist on Keeping his 
Constituents Informed Concerning the Official Con- 
duct of their Representatives — And Some of the 
Lovers of Representative Government Threw up their 
Hands at such a Democratic Innovation — The Good 
Doctor's Answer — Representative Government has 
Failed to Represent — There is Nothing Unconstitu- 
tional in Strides toward More Democracy — Great 
Britain's Democracy — Trusting Executives with 



xviii CONTEXTS 



Greater Power will Require Greater Caution in 
Choosing them — We Must " Learn to Know our 
Able Men " — Our Obligations to our Legislators of 
which we Must not Be Unmindful — They Should 
not be Placed under Temptation, when we Can 
Prevent it — Various Forms of Political Knavery — 
Bribery, in Modern Times, the Crudest Form — We 
Cannot Draw a General Indictment against Public 
Officials — Many Measure up to their Official Respon- 
sibilities; Some Are Waking up; the Honest Stand- 
patters; and those who Knowingly Follow the 
Wrong Standards — A Body-politic can Rise no 
Higher than its Fountain Source — The Main Cur- 
rents in Political Life — Stimulation Necessary — We 
Have not yet Reached a Millennium in New Jersey; 
but there are Hopes that we Shall at Least Reach 
Salvation — This Chapter a Sequel to Discoveries 
which were Made by the Author while Collecting 
Material for this Story — Some Facts which Show 
that Too Often the Wires have been Cut between 
the People and their Representatives. 

CHAPTER VIII 

THE REACTION" OX THE BODY POLITIC .... 

A Picture of Governor Wilson's Nation-wide Influence 
— A Good Thing Came out of the Land of Mos- 
quitoes and Nazarenes — Who Wants Woodrow Wil- 
son for President? — Who Does not? — Why Did the 
New Jersey Assembly Swing Back? — The Manipula- 
tions of a Bi-partisan Machine — Essex the Pivotal 
Spot — The Home of the Former Sunny Jims — 
Revenge. Sweet Revenge — Political Trading — Y»"hy 
the Governor would not Speak in Essex — The Smith- 
srent Machine Ostensibly Stripped of Representa- 
-s in Trenton — By Compromising himself the 
Governor might have Had a Democratic Legislature 
— Outside Essex the Democrats Gained — No Post- 
mortem for Woodrow Wilson — Men Faking under 



CONTENTS xix 



PAGE 



Cover of the Democratic Party Cannot Injure him — 
The Machines Cannot Undo him — He stands Out 
"Like Mars at Perihelion" — A Republican Legisla- 
ture Does not Worry him — " We are all Sworn to 
Serve the State," he Says — Members of the Legisla- 
ture Obligated More than ever before to Carry out 
Platform Pledges — Governor Wilson Has a Back-bone 
instead of a Wish-bone — He has Brought the Ghost 
of Popular Government back to Life — The Warnings 
of a Statesman who Sees — We Must Remember 
History — The Analysis of the New Jersey Election 
by those who Understand. 

CHAPTER IX 

THE TIME, THE PLACE, AND THE MAX .... 137 

What Proves that the Time Is Ripe for Change?— 
Reasons for Optimism in Political Life — But we 
Must not Overlook Defects in our Political Organiza- 
tion — Some Grave Problems Requiring Solution — 
New Economic Conditions — The Economic Question 
which Concerns us Most: the Increase in the Cost 
of Living — A Revision of the Tariff Necessary — 
The Greatest Test of the Progress of any Age — 
We Can only Progress through the Leadership of 
Great Men — We Give our Measure by our Attitude 
toward them — Few of our Greatest Statesmen Presi- 
dents — Shall History Continue to Repeat Itself? — 
Facts we Must be Sure of, before we Choose a 
Leader — Continued Reference to Governor Wilson 
and his Views — What he Says of the Tariff — He 
Would not Disturb Anything Honest — What Is the 
Trouble with Business? — Indefinite Policies — Shap- 
ing Policies to Meet Permanent rather than Tem- 
porary Interests of Country — The Question of 
Reforming the Financial System — The Money Mono- 
poly, the Greatest Question of All — Some Pointed 
Questions Concerning it — An Attempt to Answer 
them — The Eighth Wonder of the World — Samuel 



xx CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Untermyer, on Governor Wilson's Famous Harris- 
burg Speech — Getting at the Root of the Money- 
Monopoly — The Regulation of Corporations — Legit- 
imate and Illegitimate Corporations — Inadequacy 
of the Sherman Anti-trust Law — Restoration of 
Business by Putting it on a Sound Basis — Conserva- 
tion — What it Means in its Broadest Application 
— Extension of Service which the Government shall 
Render its People — To Realize Popular Government 
Machinery of Control Must be Placed in People's 
Hands — Governor Wilson Does not Believe in the 
Recall of Judges — Is he a Radical? — There Is a 
Conservative Ring in his Actions — Pays Tribute to 
American People's Sense of Justice and Practicality 
— The Chief Place for Political Experiments — 
Woodrow Wilson, a Friend of Organized Labor — 
A People's Man before he Is a Party Man — Prin- 
ciples of Progressives in both Parties Practically 
Identical — Wilson on World Peace — Time Opportune 
for a Real Leader to Come Forward — But Shall 
we Recognize him? — We Have not Always Been Able 
to Choose the Men Best Fitted to Lead us — The 
Present Time Demands Eternal Vigilance from the 
American People — The Time — The Place — The Man 
— Democracy Another Word for Opportunity — What 
Have we a Right to Expect from the Democratic 
Party? — The Business of the National Convention — 
Shall it Be Possible for a Faction of Special Inter- 
ests to Defeat a Man of the People? — An Infini- 
tesimal Inconsistency in Woodrow Wilson's Political 
Opinions Disposed of — The Charge of Ingratitude 
Replied To — What Do his Achievements Indicate? 
— A Fearless State Spokesman who Would Be 
a Fearless National Voice — We Need a Modern 
Justinian — We Are Clamoring for Leadership — 
Who Is Best Fitted to Lead? Woodrow Wilson Is 
a Southern-Northerner and a Northern-Southerner, 
a Yankee-Doodle-Dixie Candidate, and a Thrust at 
the New York Sun — We Return to Carlyle's 



CONTENTS xx i 



Theory Concerning the Placing of the Man of In- 
tellect at the Head of Affairs — A Picture of the 
Future which the Author Hopes to Live to See — 
A Political Love Feast which Might Follow Woodrow 
Wilson's Election to the Presidency. 

ADDRESS BY GOV. WOODROW WILSON AT THE ANNUAL 
BANQUET OF THE ECONOMIC CLUB IN THE HOTEL 
ASTOR ON MAY 23, 1912 184 

SPEECH MADE BY HON. JOHN W. WESCOTT OP CAMDEN, 
NEW JERSEY, BEFORE THE DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL 
CONVENTION, BALTIMORE, ON JUNE 28, 1012 . . 21(> 

SUPPLEMENT 224 

What Representative Newspapers, Magazines, and 
Prominent Men say of Woodrow Wilson — Bibli- 
ography Used by the Author: 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Woodrow Wilson's Published Works, and United States 
Senate Reports, Volume 10, Fifty-third Congress, Second Ses- 
sion, Serial Number 3188. 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



Woodrow Wilson .... Frontispiece \/ 

Like Cesar, Governor Wilson Personally En- 
couraged Every Man to Do his Duty . .10 

It Happened for Once that the Bosses Failed in 

Discrimination 26 

Woodrow Wilson on the Golf Links, September 
10, 1910, when he Received Word that he 
was Nominated for Governor of New Jersey '.V2 

Governor-Elect Wilson, during the Smith-Martine 

Contest ........ 50 

The Biggest One-Man Politician in America, 
whom Governor Wilson Licked . . . 53 

Woodrow Wilson's Birth-place, Staunton, Virginia 59 

Woodrow Wilson as President of Princeton 

Watching a Princeton-Yale Football Game . 02 

Governor Wilson and his Family . . . .08 

Old Nassau, Princeton University, where Wood- 
row Wilson Spent Twelve Years as a Pro- 
fessor and Eight Years as President . .78' 

xxiii 



xxiv ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

Woodrow Wilson, as he Appeared, when Fighting 

for Democratic Rights, at Princeton . . 82 

State House, Trenton, New Jersey, where Wood- 
row Wilson Literally Drove out the Political 
Bosses 104 

Governor Wilson Addressing an Audience in New 

Mexico 130 

Woodrow Wilson in Pasadena, California 

Governor Wilson and his Secretary . . . 154 

The Man of Intellect at the Top of Affairs: 

The Aim of All Constitutions .... 180 



Woodrow Wilson 



CHAPTER I 

MACHINE VERSUS POPULAR GOVERNMENT 

" There are certain interested people going round saying that 
I am trying to break up the organization. I am doing nothing 
of the kind. The organization they mean is merely a clique 
of politicians; a group of men here and there, who are com- 
missioned in aid of special and private, not public interests. 
They are neither Republicans nor Democrats. I am going to 
fight them to the end. They are getting nervous, not because 
I am fighting them, but because you are on to them. 

" The main object of what we are attempting, both in State 
and Nation, is to astablish a close connection, a very sensitive 
connection between the people and their governments; both in 
the State and in the Nation, in order that we may restore in 
such wise as will satisfy us again, the liberty and the oppor- 
tunity in whose interests our governments were conceived. 

" But some men put a false interpretation upon this. There 
is a certain unreasonable fear in the air as though the process 
we have been going through were in some degree vindictive, as 
if there had been bitter feeling in it, and the intention to 
discredit those who opposed it. 

" The crash of political organizations has been only the crash 
of those who did not comprehend, or resisted, when there was 
no right reason for resisting, and forgot that their very reason 
for being was that they might serve opinion and the movement 
of the people's will. If any systems of political practice have 
collapsed, only those have collapsed which were unsuitable to 
the objects which they proposed to serve. 

" We are no longer in the temper of attack. We are ready 
for remedy and adjustment, and begin to see where to begin 
and in what direction to move. A promise of statesmanship 
follows a threat of revolution. There can be no mistaking this. 
Programs are taking the place of Philippics, and programs can 
be soberly examined and assessed, as unqualified criticisms and 
denunciation cannot be." — Extracts from political addresses. 
Woodrow Wilson. 



4 WOODROW WILSON 

" To every action there is an equal action in an oppo- 
site direction," — a platitude repeated since Galileo's dis- 
covery! But all truth is old. In all countries or states 
where representative government is said to exist, it is 
organized with power theoretically well balanced, but 
the political pendulum swings, with varying degrees of 
regularity, according to social and economic conditions, 
between the extremes of plutocracy and democracy. If 
when the pendulum reaches the latter point it ever finds 
civic conscience and civic consciousness so well developed 
that the people as a unit can be trusted to choose the best 
and to maintain it, then an ideal political destiny will 
be in sight, and the energy which we have previously 
consumed in swinging back and forth in a cycle of 
changes will be directed toward constructive progress. 

Every time that a revival of democracy takes place, 
the optimists declare that we have advanced beyond party 
lines; that class distinction is disappearing; that we are 
beginning to recognize that the welfare of the whole 
depends upon the moral and intellectual virility of each 
member of a commonwealth; that it is better for all 
men to be free. 

Some of our Utopian friends even tell us, when we are 
passing through these delightfully stimulating periods, 
that the interest which has been aroused in individuals 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 5 

will be sustained, and that they can be depended upon 
to contribute their share toward the perpetuation of 
the most worthy civic standards, even after the leaders 
who have wrought these political innovations have ceased 
to exist. We perceive a keener edge on our patriotism 
and we entertain a hope that there will come a time 
when each citizen will do his part toward immortalizing 
the principles of the great. We characterize each era of 
regeneration as a " New Democracy." If we could be 
sure of an ever alert, discriminating, and energetic citi- 
zenship to select the ablest and most sincere men avail- 
able for leadership, and we could rely upon our citizens 
to support every age of reform, we would be able in a 
not far distant epoch of history to realize a democracy 
which would mean the whole of the people, not a part 
of them ; a democracy which would mean free men, not 
owned men. Each democratic decade brings new hope, 
but like every institution, democracy brings its errors. 
De Tocqueville has told us that the remedy for the 
evils of democracy is more democracy. Modern experi- 
ence teaches us that the thoughtful De Tocqueville was 
right. The plutocrats will emit a roar at such doc- 
trine and relegate its advocates lo ihe scrap-heap of 
undesirable citizens. A plutocrat may be either a Re- 
publican or a Democrat so called; for there are Pluto- 



6 WOODROW WILSON 

cratic Democrats, Democratic Democrats, Democratic 
Plutocrats, and Full-fledged Plutocrats. The dyed-in-the- 
wool plutocrat is rapidly becoming an extinct species, 
but he still exists. He is the man who accepts with 
reluctance the principles of manhood suffrage. He looks 
upon popular education half heartedly, half suspecting 
that it may arouse a discontent among the masses, which 
may in the end swamp special privilege. He regards 
approachable legislatures as safety valves against the 
encroachments of what he calls the " mob." He believes 
in " judicious bribery." He considers the boodle which 
he contributes toward this purpose a part of his chari- 
table duty, to shield society from legislation representa- 
tive of the envy and ignorance of the masses. He suspects 
the sincerity of radical legislators, and when they begin 
to sweep down cobwebs in our State capitols, he thinks 
their action a signal inviting an approach from the in- 
terests. In other words, he would make us believe that 
reform bodies are blackmailing institutions, which extort 
money from corporations under threats to control their 
relations with the people. 

The benevolent plutocrats, in a quicksand of despair, 
being utterly unable to appreciate the motives and char- 
acters of those who honestly strive to interpret the popu- 
lar will, have frequently misunderstood them. Extreme 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 7 

measures have been resorted to. " The kingdoms of the 
world and the glory of them " have been exhibited from 
high mountains ; and " the powers that be " confounded, 
when these temptations have been resisted. 

We still regard the plutocrat as an interesting psycho- 
logical product. He would return to the days of feudal 
barons if he could, but modern society won't let him. 
He laughs at the attempts of democracy to equalize oppor- 
tunity, by creating a political and industrial freedom 
where every individual shall be given his best chance. 
He insists that the plain people shall be kept in fear 
and awe of the possessors of wealth, who are to be 
revered as the accumulators of the world's money, wis- 
dom, and everything else worth while. In fact, the 
sacredness of wealth is to be upheld over every other 
institution. 

One of our mighty moneyed men, in a moment of 
vehement outrage, during a wave of political house- 
cleaning, protested thus: 

"I make it a rule never, except when talking with 
members of my own class, to speak harshly of even such 
rich men as the late Jay Gould, for fear that what I 
say may cause suspicion about the great institution of 
wealth itself. If I think it is not divinely ordained, but 
is the product of rare ability and hardness in the struggle 
of life, I don't want my coachman to know it. I prefer 



8 WOODROW WILSON 

to have him think that I am a better man than he is, 
and therefore have more money. And I am, too." 

In other words, this holier-than-thon, self-sufficient, and 
superior human being, not made a little lower than the 
angels, but belonging in, or to a stratum above them, 
would smother any sentiment which encourages men to 
think for themselves, and he would suppress as dangerous 
any influence which propels forces of constructive dis- 
content. Such an individual would keep the shutters of 
society closed and the curtains drawn, that its faults 
might not be nakedly exposed outside the inner shrine. 

But the Napoleons of power deceive themselves. The 
people may be cheated, but not fooled. The knights of 
plutocracy have a childlike faith in the dupability of 
mankind. They proclaim to the lawmakers how neces- 
sary it is that they shall be protected from the hostility 
of the muckrakers and the mob, in order to stimulate 
business and preserve prosperity. They appeal to the 
gullible voters, by attempting to make them believe that 
the people get the lion's share of the prosperity. In 
times past, there has been enough money circulated to 
verify this impression, particularly at election time. 
Flexible statistics have been released from cold storage, 
and the batteries of political rings recharged. 

We have heard much, past and present, of government 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 9 

by political machines; more than we are ever to hear 
again if the progress which we are making is a true 
indication of the eventual restoration of popular rights. 

Many have confused honest party organization, which is 
representative, with corrupt machine government, which 
is misrepresentative. A comparison will show a wide 
divergence of purposes. The organization is responsive 
to the popular sentiment of its party. The machine 
regards the party as an efficient instrument through 
which a few special interests may secure immunities and 
privileges. The organization seeks to serve the people's 
interests, according to its best understanding of them, 
by incorporating the principles and ideas of its party 
into stable government. The machine does not keep faith 
with the people, but places its own party in jeopardy, 
through the violation of platform pledges. Every one 
recognizes the necessity of party organization, which is 
legitimate, so long as its prime object is to serve the 
people. When an organization deteriorates and becomes 
an obnoxious machine, then it is individuals who are at 
fault, and (he party is not responsible. Following in 
the footsteps of our " real Governor," we have no 
quarrel in this volume with any organization whose 
purpose is to uphold honestly the traditions and the 
political creed of the party which it represents. In- 



10 WOODROW WILSON 

stead, we prefer to support enthusiastically such patriotic 
efforts. 

With the hope that machines now in existence will 
send their wayward bosses to camp-meeting to reform, 
that they may become healthy and useful organizations, 
a picture of machine government, ancient and modern, 
is here drawn. 

In the first place all governments have resulted from 
the inherent tendency of society to organize for the 
furtherance of its purposes, legitimate and otherwise. It 
would be difficult to say when honest organization was 
first supplanted by the mighty movement of machine 
domination. Perhaps Pharaoh was the creator of this 
infernal institution, and an account of the antechamber 
conference between him and the militant reformer, Moses, 
with the astute Aaron present, flaunting his magical rod, 
and offering here and there a suggestion, might be illumi- 
nating. Possibly this incident even afforded an inspira- 
tion for the wielders of the waving " big stick " of recent 
years. We remember with satisfaction the punishment 
which the unrelenting Pharaoh received, but the ten 
plagues laid upon the Egyptians were not to be com- 
pared in their disciplinary effects with the weapons of 
popular government hurled relentlessly at the heads of 
our about-to-be-dethroned modern bosses and their power- 



Like Caesar, Governor Wilson personally encouraged every man to do 
his duty. 

The smile of the Governor makes friends Tor him and ir will make votes 
for him too. 




Copyright, Underwood and I \ ■ . 

'7 !ontrarj to the general belief, I am an organization man. It depends, 
however, upon what that organization is for. If an organization is 
privately owned, I am not for it. If. on the other hand, it is used as a 
means of expressing the views of the people. I am certainly in favor of it."' 
—Woodrow Wilson. 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OYER 11 

ful official and industrial allies. These weapons are the 
direct primary, initiative, referendum, recall, short bal- 
lot, modern corrupt practices laws, and the probability 
of the election of United States Senators by a strictly 
popular vote. Within the next few years after these 
defensive measures have been thoroughly tested, we shall 
know whether machine government has met its doom or 
whether " We have scotched the snake, not killed it." 

For many years self-respecting private citizens have 
resented living under municipal and state administra- 
tions, and we may almost say, a national government 
controlled by the political, financial, and social combina- 
tions seeking exclusively the prosperity of the special 
interests, and the promotion to high offices of ambitious 
money changers of tbe temple of the Stock Exchange. 
But the Americans are an ingenious people, and by study- 
ing the experimental features of other nations, and by 
observing the progress of many of our own States, we 
are discovering means whereby we may insure the per- 
manent existence of a democratic republic, with the high- 
est degree of personal liberty compatible with the general 
interest. 

The enemies of machine government tell us that its 
destruction is essential to the preservation of a govern- 
ment by, for, and of the people. By a strange coinci- 



12 WOODROW WILSON 

dence these enemies of the machine are friends of 
democracy. They have the situation figured out thus. A 
machine is only able to sustain a strain that is equal to 
the strength of its weakest part. There are four elements 
indispensable to the existence of a political machine: 
The Kings of finance -f- the political bosses -J- the interest- 
owned public officials -{- the people who don't care = the 
political machine. The financial masters are the prime 
movers of the special interests, men of aggressive, though 
agreeable personalities, disciples of Jupiter, ordained to 
rule, Hydra-brained, with tongues as smooth as mercury, 
and gifted with that marvellous insight into character 
which enables them to win the confidence of men and to 
appoint political bosses who will deliver successfully " the 
golden apples of the Hesperides." To complete the ma- 
chine the middle-man or boss must be able to depend 
upon a large body of subservient legislators and ether 
officials, gravely thinking about nothing, and a body 
politic, the majority of which is in a jellylike, comatose 
condition. 

He is the best boss who has at his command the largest 
number of legislative puppets, who never fail to carry 
out the will of their dictator. With the labors of Her- 
cules on his shoulders, the boss must be a man of some 
parts; a charming companion, but an autocrat, who can 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 13 

make the best use of campaign, funds, dictate nomina- 
tions, control committees, engineer elections, ' influence ' 
the press, and even create circumstances which will perfect 
the work of his organization to the minutest detail. (And 
the taxpayer pays the bills.) The boss is never a king 
among men, but frequently he is a czar. He is never a 
true leader, but often he is a driver. Like the centurion 
of Scripture, he must be able to say, " I am a man under 
authority, having soldiers under me, and I say to this 
man ' Go,' and he goeth ; and to another ' Come,' and he 
cometh ; and to my servant, ' Do this,' and he doeth it." 

It is apparent from this analysis of political machinery 
that the weakest essentials of the machine's anatomy, in 
future, when we learn how to use effectively the instru- 
ments of popular government, will be those who make 
the laws and the electors who vote for them. In the 
State of New Jersey, an executive who refuses to take 
orders, and a few reformers, almost as scarce as were 
the righteous of Sodom and Gomorrah, are responsible 
for this civic regeneration, now in the process of 
development. 

Since the people and the lawmakers are the two chief 
sources of strength underlying machine-made govern- 
ment, and there have been recently exhibited through an 
awakened public conscience evidences of a tottering 



14 WOODROW WILSON 

foundation, the outlook is encouraging. It looks as if 
the prophecy of the late Mayor Jones of Toledo, Ohio, 
would be fulfilled : " The political kings or bosses must 
go to work and earn their living with the rest." 

Thus the bosses, if they have not been so long in the 
harness that their present habits have become incurable 
manias, may reform ; and free from their unholy alliances 
with captains of industry, they may use their political 
experience to serve their State and country as they should 
be served, thereby avoiding the embarrassment of be- 
ing forcibly ejected by their public-spirited contempo- 
raries. Perhaps if they can be induced to believe that 
the institution which they represent has outlived its use- 
fulness, they will vote to abolish their own dictatorships, 
and so make themselves popular. 

In fact, the bosses, with their expert knowledge, might 
be able to see better reasons for their own dethronement 
than we mere mortals could ever discover. For instance, 
they might be able to tell us why it would be better to 
elect officials to act as free agents, who would be respon- 
sible to the people, than to elect men who would willingly 
be " jerked about by unseen wires," behind the scenes 
of the legislative stage. Perhaps they could inform us 
why corporations prefer to deal with legislators under 
the discipline of the machine bogey, rather than with law- 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 15 

makers of free thought and independent action. We 
might learn from them why those identified with the 
special interests are almost universally opposed to the 
modern reform institutions mentioned before in this 
chapter. 

If the benevolent motives of the few, who constitute 
self-appointed committees to look after the interests of 
the many, exceed their desires for personal advantage, 
why do they not cover themselves with glory by en- 
couraging the measures of self-government, so as to 
stimulate individuals to think for themselves, thereby 
relieving the Incorporated Society of Manufactured 
Thought of much of its labor? Some of us who are 
gravely interested would like to know why the bosses of 
both parties fly to each other's rescue when an alarm of 
people's rights is sounded. Still others of us are anxious 
for information as to why Executives in many States 
(not New Jersey, 1911, or a few other progressive States 
still permitted space on the maps) continue to appoint 
to lucrative offices only men considered safe and sane by 
the special interests. Then again, the discovery has been 
made that in every place where gross election frauds 
have been exposed, the political machine has fortified the 
corrupt practices by a Chinese wall. 

So much for generalites, before we proceed to person- 



16 WOODROW WILSON 

alities. But here we beg to invite students of political 
problems to come to New Jersey to study history and 
the machinations of a system, the methods and in- 
fluences of which have ramified not only to every section 
of this State, but to many other States and even to the 
nation. 

Right here it may not be out of place to ask local 
questions. Hence we inquire why the support of the 
State Democratic machine disappeared as magically as 
a witch's wand when the Governor-Elect chose to keep 
his pledges to the people? We may be able to answer 
this question ourselves, because simultaneously with such 
an event as is here described we heard something drop 
in the State of New Jersey. It was a former United 
States Senator, the Honorable James Smith, Jr., who, 
rumor has it, was made of enamel leather, coated with 
sugar, and he struck hard on the pavement of public 
opinion. But more of him hereafter. 

A few months later our Democratic State Chairman, 
who, by the way, is a nephew of our veteran ex-boss, 
founded the New Jersey Branch of the Ananias Club, at 
which time he proposed the name of Governor Wilson, 
who was declared ineligible for membership, on the 
ground that he had kept every promise which he had 
made to the people of the State. Now James Nugent, 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 17 

for that was the Chairman's name, is an ex-State Chair- 
man with the accent on the Ex. 

It happened this way. Comrade " Jim " Nugent and 
the Governor had failed to see things alike. Mr. Nugent 
thought that the State government should serve the 
machine and its purposes, while the Governor said that 
it should serve the people, whereupon Chairman Jim told 
the Governor that he was no gentleman. So when the 
Chairman gave a little birthday dinner, the Governor 
could not be invited, because Mr. Nugent only associates 
with gentlemen who measure up to his standard. Here 
the State Chairman proposed a slanderous toast to the 
Governor, which his guests, though gentlemen, had the 
courage to resent, and because no one would drink with 
Mr. Nugent, he drank alone. Since then he has been 
unkindly dubbed, " Drink-alone- Jim." The State Com- 
mittee elected a new State Chairman. If Mr. Nugent has 
any spare time he might read with profit the fable of 
" The Fly on the Bull's Horn." 

Since the purpose of this book is to tell the story of 
the civic regeneration of New Jersey, a few facts of 
State history, to bear our generalities, may be of interest. 
Our State pride assures us that no matter how deeply 
we may have allowed ourselves to become submerged 
at times, in a political rut of vaporous haze, some of us 



18 WOODROW WILSON 

have always been able to see over the rim, and to catch 
a glimpse of individual rights as they should exist, in 
time to dispel the mists of a vitiated atmosphere, and 
to create a stimulus for the bracing breezes which are 
sure to follow the injection of ozone into political life. 

J. Lincoln Steffens wielded a prophetic pen when he 
wrote in 1905, " New Jersey's real fight has just begun. 
Your machine and your corrupt special in tores is are 
not thoroughly aroused yet, but they will be awakened 
to a true sense of the situation. New Jersey will be 
one of the first three States to get out of the hole." 
We hope later on in this volume to prove that New 
Jersey was number one of the States to which Mr. 
Steffens referred. New York and Pennsylvania were 
on his list. 

At the outset it must be admitted that back of all 
anaemic and corrupt conditions in government lie the 
apathy and indifference of those who do not interest 
themselves in politics. This class is wholly responsible 
for machine government and its attendant evils, and we 
still have left in our own State many citizens belong- 
ing to the indifferent and the ignorant types. A cosmo- 
politan population, containing a large foreign element, 
easily controlled by political machines, and, incidentally, 
a constituency which prefers golf on Election Day to 



NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 19 

a half-hour at the polls, presents sociological conditions 
of a most complicated character. 

Naturally we like to blame fate for the greatest number 
of our misfortunes; probably because we know that she 
will not shirk the responsibility, and it is the easiest 
way for us to apologize for our own deficiencies. Ho 
the physiography of New Jersey has been blamed for 
much of the civic lethargy of our citizens, and an im- 
pertinent non-resident observer has given us a thrilling 
shock by accusing a majority of Jerseyites of doing their 
thinking in New York and their voting in New Jersey. 
Perhaps that is why a few reforms began in New York 
before they got started in New Jersey. While we ap- 
plaud our critic's sentiments more than his good man- 
ners, we shall respond to the criticism by saying that 
we do most of our thinking when under the stimulation 
of a wise and unselfish leadership, perhaps because we 
know that only through practical guidance can we hope 
to realize our ideals of political progress. 

We exclaim with Carlyle: "We cannot do without 
great men," although we become discouraged at times 
because we have had such forgeries. " So many base 
plated coins passing in the market, the belief has now 
become common that no gold any longer exists, and even 
that we can do very well without gold." At such periods 



20 WOODROW WILSON 

when man loses hope, Nature brings forth a true son 
of reform, " working in a mysterious way its wonders 
to perform," sometimes through such crooked channels 
as corrupt political machines, which occasionally bring 
forward strangers into politics, supposed to be un- 
sophisticated in the arena of the political game; thereby 
" entertaining angels unawares." 

The great body of independent voters from which all 
progressive movements take their beginnings, and in 
whose hands the main leverage of all reform rests, rises 
up, half hopeful, half distrustful, and casts its lot with 
the side least under suspicion, wondering if " any good 
thing can come out of Nazareth." Generally when the 
people are passing through these crucial stages they 
choose wisely; hence proving their right to self-govern- 
ment in all that this comprehensive term implies. Re- 
cently we have had in our own State a striking example 
of such an historical incident, followed by a reaction, 
which indicates that our political institutions have, at 
last, been thoroughly cleaned up, although some of the 
people are not quite ready to use aggressively the 
numerous instruments of reform recently placed in their 
hands. But we have secured the entering wedge, broken the 
ground, and in the end we will plough through, although 
we have been in the dark so long that at first the light 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 21 

hurls our eyes. Our incipient experience is not surpris- 
ing. We must rise to the occasion and use our new 
tools, not let them rust. Never before in the modern 
chronicles of the commonwealth has there been such an 
opportunity for the people of New Jersey to exercise 
the rights of free government as exists to-day. Never 
before has there been such an opportunity for the 
State to test the fitness of its people for democratic 
government. 

And this unique epoch of history, in a State where, 
for nearly a half century, careful scrutiny of facts shows 
that representative government has been only a name, 
leads us to the interesting story of the entrance into 
politics of Woodrow Wilson, the scholar-governor, who 
has, as we shall later see, studied politics according to 
the facts rather than the theories involved. That his 
arrival in the political world was timely is proven by the 
failure of the seventeen-year-locust to return to us in 
1010-11. How we escaped this visitation will be told 
later in our story. 



CHAPTER II 

governor Wilson's nomination and election: a unique 

campaign 

" The Princeton sage is the man of the hour and the medium 
by which the Democratic party is to have its hunger for the 
plums of victory appeased after so long a wait." — James Smith, 
Jr., ex-United States Senator. August 13, 1910. 

" The key-note of this campaign is to give the people access 
of their own government." — From a campaign speech made by 
Woodrow Wilson. 

How could the man who sounded the trumpet of free- 
dom, echoed by the latter utterance, have been nominated 
for the high office of Governor, at the dictation of the 
champion State boss and his retainers? And thereby 
hangs a tale. 

When I began to write this story I was under the 
impression that machine politicians discovered Woodrow 
Wilson, but an investigation proved, as we shall later 
see, that it was through his published works and public 
addresses that he revealed his capacity for a career of 
statesmanship. 

It was really the best people in America, and not any 



NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 23 

individual, who discovered Woodrow Wilson, although 
a political machine did bring him forward. We be- 
lieve, however, that this action was partly due to a 
strong popular sentiment in his favor. 

In an interview with the Governor, I ventured to say, 
" The machine in New Jersey did one splendid thing for 
our State which should never be forgotten." 

The Governor looked at me inquiringly. 

" That was when it nominated you for Governor." 

" They would never do it again though," he said 
smilingly. 

Of course every one in the United States, who reads 
the newspapers, knows by this time why the old Smith- 
Nugent machine, of New Jersey, would never again con- 
sciously render any more favors to Woodrow Wilson, 
xV.B., A.M., LL.B., Ph.D., LL.D., and Litt.D., whose degree 
G. N. J. would never have been conferred except for the 
kind offices of our sugar-coated ex-United States Senator 
and his lonesome nephew, James Nugent, who is now 
undergoing political ostracism. 

It seems hardly just to the interests of the State and 
the nation that such splendid press agents for our great 
Governor should be in any way restrained. These two 
gentlemen have given our executive much valuable adver- 
tising; and if they were to be allowed to go on hurling 



24 WOODROW WILSON 

their verbal artillery at the head of our State House 
captain, they might help to make him President of the 
United States as unintentionally as they intentionally 
made him Governor of New Jersey. 

The incidents connected with Governor Wilson's nomi- 
nation always reminded me of a story of a tornado which 
once struck a one-ring circus in Georgia. The main top 
was blown down, the menagerie's tent was destroyed, all 
the cages were upset, and the animals escaped. The 
management huddled about a stove in a cross-roads store 
and peered pessimistically into a dismal future. The 
chances were they would never get the animals back. By 
and by a negro approached. 

"Did you-all lose a giraffe?" he asked. 

" We lost everything," said the manager shortly, " but 
we will pay you if you get the giraffe back." 

Sambo left, with a promise to bring the animal, remark- 
ing of the latter that he was " a powahful bad-tempered 
creature," and that he had bitten the poor colored man 
ferociously. The manager explained that giraffes kick 
but never bite. Then he assured Sambo of a liberal re- 
ward. In a few minutes the negro returned leading by 
a rope around his neck the strongest lion in captivity. 

" Wo 'a," said Sambo jerking at the rope, " gimme 
mah money, heah 's youah giraffe and he bites." 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 25 

Since ex-Governor George T. Wert's time, 1893-96, the 
Democratic party of New Jersey had dwindled into a 
one-ring circus. Several times their tents had been 
struck by the greed and wealth of both great political 
machines. Some of their showiest attractions, George 
L. Record, for instance, had escaped, followed the Jumbo 
of the Republican party, and taken refuge in the pro- 
gressive side-show of that organization. Naturally, when 
machine government under the auspices of the Republican 
party for sixteen years failed to furnish the people a 
show worth their money a clamor of discontent prevailed. 
The Democrats, with the opportunity thus created by 
their discredited opponents, resolved to rehabilitate their 
circus and to cast their eyes about for a political ring- 
master. A few of the managers, who regarded honesty 
as a lost virtue, preferred an executive of the giraffe 
type, who would kick, but not bite. These Democratic 
leaders, so-called, went iu search of a biped who would 
kick only just enough to make the people think that 
he wanted a reform, but without really meaning busi- 
ness, — a process which some previous governors had put 
over us. 

But it happened for once that the bosses failed in 
discrimination, and as they had trusted in their own 
judgment so long, they did not take a mind-reader or 



26 WOODROW WILSON 

clairvoyant along when they went to interview Doctor 
Wilson. And so it came to pass, in the year of our 
Lord, One Thousand Nine Hundred and Ten, that this 
Democratic machine brought forth a political lion, who 
could not be caged in the State House by either Board 
of Guardians ; who esteemed his obligations to his country 
to be greater than his obligations to a group of indi- 
viduals; who could soar high in the realms of prosaic 
theory and descend with equal grace and ease without 
the loss of force to practical action; whose faculties were 
so trained that the meeting of emergencies was only 
necessary recreation, whose insight into character and 
power to analyze men and their motives resulted in nu- 
merous revival meetings, in both political parties, not 
only during his campaign, but after his election, which 
proved that his converts were not of the backslider's 
~type. And so it is predicted by those who have worked 
with this leader, who leads, not by making men think 
what he thinks, but by making men think for themselves, 
that he will go right on making good, demonstrating his 
capacity for managing practical affairs, and proving that 
virtue in statesmanship is not a lost art, until the Demo- 
cratic party will be convinced that it can trust Woodrow 
Wilson, a Democrat from the top of his head to the 
soles of his feet, to become its guide, with the assurance 




( opyright, Underwood, New York. 

But it happened for once that the bosses failed in discrimination, and, as 
ley had trusted in their own judgment so long, they did not take a mini! 
>ader or clairvoyant along when they went to interview Doctor Wilson 
ancerning his possible candidacy for the Governorship. 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 27 

that the disciples of Jefferson, Jackson, Tilden, and 
Cleveland will not get lost in the woods. 

Such is the story of the "scholar's" advent into poli- 
tics, now said to be " the literary man in politics." Those 
who have read Doctor Wilson's Congressional Govern 
ment, published when he was twenty-nine, The State, 
History of the American People, Constitutional Govern- 
ment in the United States, and numerous other literary 
productions pertaining to political and historical problems 
of government and their solution, are able to see why 
the political world attracted him. The corollary, why 
Doctor Wilson attracted the political world, is of even 
greater interest. Many college professors have written 
books on political science, many have achieved notable 
distinction in this field, and some of our most worthy 
ones have filled public offices admirably and discharged 
the duties of ambassadorships most efficiently, but Gov- 
ernor Wilson is the first university president to travel 
with lightning rapidity from the place of academic 
executive to possible President of the United States. 
Interest centres in the remarkable development of a man 
of such parts that he has drawn the attention as a 
desirable Presidential candidate of a large number of 
both conservatives and radicals from ocean to ocean. 

Much of the history of this unique national figure is 






28 WOODROW WILSON 

reserved for other chapters, but the story of his nomina- 
tion, as the reader has already discerned, may be summed 
np in this : the Democratic machine-men believed that they 
had in their midst a theorist of statesman-like ideals, 
but who, when translated to the field of practical politics, 
would prove himself a politician in swaddling clothes; 
honest, perhaps, but easily blind-folded, tame, manage- 
able, and perfectly harmless, in all that the word " harm- 
less " means, as interpreted by the State bosses, or the 
would-be bosses, as we say now. 

So it was an occasion for great rejoicing when the 
good Doctor gave out the assurance to a party of over- 
solicitous friends, on July 15, 1910, that he would become 
a candidate for Governor of New Jersey, if it were the 
wish and hope of a majority of thoughtful Democrats 
that he should accept the nomination. It must be re- 
membered that the office sought the man first, last, and 
all the time. 

Many thought, at this time, that back of Doctor Wil- 
son's nomination was concealed the most desperate 
struggle for the control of the nation by the Democratic 
party since the " Gum-shoe " campaign of Parker in 
1904. Whatever may have been the plans of the bosses 
the spirit of their dreams was destined to be changed. 

When the announcement of Doctor Wilson's nomina- 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 29 

tion was made no one in the State with pretensions of 
enlightenment could have safely inquired, Who is this man 
Wilson? For fifteen years, Doctor Wilson had spoken 
with increasing frequency and influence to audiences of 
representative people, before prominent clubs, organiza- 
tions of bankers, lawyers, educators, and in fact all 
classes of business and professional men. Not only was 
he among the first of " Who 's Who in New Jersey," but 
in the imaginary " Blue Book " of the United States 
his name must have appeared conspicuously among the 
men worth while: among the great, and not the near 
great. 

When on September 1G, 1910, the future Governor of 
New Jersey received word from his friends in the Demo- 
cratic State Convention that he was nominated, he 
hastened from the golf links, where he received the news, 
to the scene of political enthusiasm, and delivered his 
speech of acceptance with the simplicity of a schoolboy. 
He spoke like this: 

" I feel the responsibility of the occasion. Respon- 
sibility is proportionate to opportunity. It is a great 
opportunity to serve the State and Nation. I did not 
seek this nomination, I have made no pledge and have 
given no promises. If elected I am left absolutely free 
to serve you with all singleness of purpose. It is a new 
era when these things can be said, and in connection 



30 WOODROW WILSON 

with this I feel that the dominant idea of the moment 
is the responsibility of deserving. I will have to serve 
the State very well in order to deserve the honor of 
being at its head. . . . 

" Our platform is sound, satisfactory, and explicit. 
The explicitness of the pledges in it is a great test of 
its sincerity. By it we will win the confidence of the 
people. If we keep the confidence, we can keep it only 
by performance. 

" Above all the issues there are three which demand 
our particular attention : first, the business-like and 
economical administration of the business of the State; 
second, equalization of taxes; and third, control of cor- 
porations. There are other important questions, like the 
matter of a corrupt-practices act, liability of employers, 
and conservation, but the three I have mentioned will 
dominate these. 

" We must have a public service commission with the 
amplest powers to oversee and regulate public service 
corporations, — not powers to advise, but powers to 
control. 

" States are primarily the instruments of controlling 
the corporations and not the Federal government. . . . 
It is my strong hope that New Jersey will lead the way 
in reform ; moreover the State can find out whether it 
has been creating corporations to elude the law." 

At the conclusion of his speech Doctor Wilson struck 
the key-note of his statesmanship. 

" Did you ever experience the elation of a great hope, 
that you desire to do right because it is right and with- 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 31 

out thought of doing it for your own interest? At that 
period your hopes are unselfish. 

" This in particular is a day of unselfish, purposes for 
Democracy. The country has been universally misled 
and the people have begun to believe that there is some- 
thing radically wrong. And now we should make this 
era of hope one of realization through the Democratic 
party. 

"The lime when you can play politics and fool the 
American people has gone by. II is a case of put up 
or shut up. We must show the people that we are not 
looking for offices but for results. . . . 

"Maine is a word that has stirred many feelings. 
They had a Democratic Governor named Plaisted and 
waited until his son grew up to get another. In the 
meantime they had been learning by experience the need 
of getting the second one. 

" We have come to a new era, just as when the founders 
of the country established a new era in 1he history of 
the world when they founded Uiis government. We have 
got to reconstruct a new economic society, and in doing 
this we will have to directly govern political methods. 
In doing this we will be doing something as great as 
did our forefathers. 

"America has one special distinction. It is not that 
she has wealth and resources. Many a nation which 
had wealth rotted away before America was born. It 
is that America was born with an ideal, — freedom for 
its people." 

With such a declaration of principles. Doctor Wilson 
entered political life, but even after this many honesl 



32 WOODROW WILSON 

people were full of grave doubts for the future. It stood 
as a fact that Doctor Wilson was a machine product, 
and Jerseyites had long before lost faith in political 
machines. Still, nearly every one believed that the Re- 
publican nominee, if elected, would do substantially as 
the State " bosses " wanted him to do. There was a 
chance that Doctor Wilson meant what he said. The 
people took advantage of the doubt. They had been 
fooled so long by the Republicans that they knew it was 
not possible to be duped worse by the Democrats. Then, 
too, many thoughtful people had observed that in the 
beginning mere mention of Doctor Wilson, as a guber- 
natorial candidate, had resulted in the reshaping of the 
plans of the party in power. The platforms of the two 
chief parties were as near alike in their principles as 
Siamese Twins. The independent voters decided that 
the best thing to do was to help the " outs " to oust 
the " ins." 

In the meantime the clever Professor kept right on 
gaining ground every time that he addressed an audi- 
ence, always assuring his hearers that he had accepted the 
nomination with the understanding that if elected he was 
to lead the party, and that he would assume the duties 
of his office untrammelled by any promises, save those 
he made to the people. 




Copyright, Underwood, New York. 

When on September 16, 1910, the future Governor of New Jersey 
ceived word from his friends in the Democratic State Convention that 
i was nominated, he hastened from the golf links, where he received the 
iws, to the scene of political enthusiasm, and delivered his speech of accep- 
nce with the simplicity of a schoolboy. 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 33 

But even the eloquence and power which flowed like 
quicksilver from a personality radiant with mental mag- 
netism were not to be compared in interest, by a studious 
observer, with the looks of hope and expressions of con- 
fidence revealed by the countenances of Doctor Wilson's 
listeners. The people followed him, not because he had 
been nominated by the machine, but in spite of it. Mr. 
Wilson, not the machine, led the Democratic party, in 
1910. 

In New Jersey they spell conservative in hieroglyphics. 
To illustrate the force, strength, and sincerity of Doctor 
Wilson's appeals to an ultra-conservative people, some 
of his most characteristic campaign expressions are here 
quoted : 

" I take leave to believe that there is one singular 
question that underlies all the other questions discussed 
on the political platform, at the present moment. That 
singular circumstance is that nothing is done in this 
country as it was done twenty years ago. The old party 
platforms of twenty years ago read like documents taken 
out of a forgotten age. We are in the presence of a 
new organization of society. We are eagerly bent on fitting 
that new organization as we did once fit the old organiza- 
tion to the happiness and prosperity of the great body of 
citizens. We are conscious that that order of society 
does not fit and provide that convenience, or happiness, 
or prosperity to the average man. We are not legislat- 
ing for exceptional men, for the rich, for the poor, for 



34 WOODROW WILSON 

any class. We are trying to find out what is for the 
common interest of every individual, providing he lives 
honestly and strives honorably in the profession to which 
he has devoted himself." 

Paying a compliment to America and the power it 
exerts, Doctor Wilson said : 

" But what has made us strong? The toil of millions 
of men, the toil of men who do not boast, who are in- 
conspicuous, and who live their lives humbly from day 
to day, and this great body of workers, this great body 
of toilers, constitute the might of America. What is 
the manifest duty of all statesmanship? It is to see that 
this great body of men, who constitute the strength of 
America, are properly dealt with by the laws, and 
properly nurtured and taken care of by the policy of 
the country. 

" Well, what hinders? What stands in the way? Why 
you know that everything really worth discussing comes 
to the question of the corporations. What I object to 
is that some of these corporation men are taking joy 
rides in their corporations. You know what men do 
when they have a joy ride. They sometimes have the 
time of their lives and sometimes, fortunately, the last 
time of their lives. Now many of these corporation men 
are taking joy rides in which they do not kill the people 
that are riding in their touring-cars, but they kill the 
people they run over. 

" Competition is being done away with. You are still 
in the modern organization of business but not one 
bit of legislation has been passed to meet these essen- 
tial circumstances. The trouble with the legislation, in 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 35 

regard to corporations, is that in respect to our punish- 
ment we treat them as persons, like individuals, and they 
are not persons, they are not individuals. Do you sup- 
pose that there is any corporation whose business is so 
badly handled that the officers of the corporation could 
not tell you who originated any particular act of the 
corporation? If the officers who ordered the thing done 
do not know who did it then they don't know their 
business. They do know who ordered it done, and the 
man who gave the orders is the man the law ought 
to punish. 

" The point is that we must change the law in order 
that we may do the remarkable thing of finding the 
man who really is guilty. Then, when we find some- 
body that has done that thing that he ought not to do, 
— even though he was authorized to do it by the corpora- 
tion, put him into jail. Our jails are used to great 
advantage, but the philanthropy might be extended. The 
moralizing effect of the jail ought not to be withheld from 
certain classes of the community. 

" Then we are tired of seeing legislation in favor of 
the ' special interests ' and want legislation in the general 
interests. When I say that we are tired, I mean that 
the American people are tired and they are going to 
show it in the next decade in a way that will make 
some gentlemen's heads swim." 

Perhaps this kind of speech answers the question why 
Mr. Wilson was bound to prove himself no novice, but 
a great moral force in his dealings with men and affairs. 

When Doctor Wilson speaks he reminds us of the story 
of Samson. A Sundav-school teacher once told a class 



36 WOODROW WILSON 

of boys of Samson's exploits, — mentioning that he killed 
a lion, slew thirty men, slaughtered three hundred foxes, 
and carried away the gate of Gaza as though it were 
a feather. All the boys listened in amazement, with ears 
and mouths open, when one fellow said, " Say, teacher, 
what horse-power was Samson anyway ? " What horse- 
power do Woodrow Wilson's speeches and achievements 
indicate? Enough to be a strong Governor? Yes. A 
President? Decidedly. 

But to return to the development of Doctor Wilson's 
gubernatorial campaign. The pivot on which the contest 
turned was what is known as the Wilson-Record matter. 
Ex-Governor John W. Griggs, in a Republican cam- 
paign meeting, taunted Doctor Wilson with being a mere 
scholar, unfamiliar with practical life and public ques- 
tions. In a reply soon after, Doctor Wilson expressed 
his willingness to meet any candidate in the State in 
joint debate. George L. Record, now a progressive Re- 
publican, who executes those artistic partisan flops which 
make him the envy of less agile men, issued an accept- 
ance of the challenge. He addressed to Doctor Wilson 
nineteen questions, which the latter answered with 
such perfect satisfaction that a large number of the 
progressive Republicans voted for him. 

The reply which Mr. Wilson made to Mr. Record proved 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OYER 37 

to be so truly prophetic that a part of it is quoted with 
the hope that future governors may take the cue by 
arranging to make their programs before and after 
election match: 

" You wish to know what my relations would be with 
the Democrats whose power and influence you fear should 
I be elected governor, particularly in such important 
matters as appointments and the signing of bills, and I 
am very glad to tell you. If elected I shall not either 
in the matter of appointments to office, or assent to 
legislation, or in shaping any part of the policy of my 
administration, submit to the dictation of any person, 
or persons, ' special interests,' or organization. I will 
always welcome advice and suggestions from any citizen, 
whether boss, leader, organization man, or plain citizen, 
and I shall constantly seek the advice of influential and 
disinterested men representative of their communities and 
disconnected from political organizations entirely; but 
all suggestions, and all advice, will be considered on its 
merits and no additional weight will be given to any 
man's advice because of his exercising, or supposing that 
he exercises, some sort of political influence or control. 
I should deem myself forever disgraced should I, in 
even the slightest degree, co-operate in any such system. 
I regard myself as pledged to the regeneration of the 
Democratic party." 

Mr. Record also inquired : " Do you admit that the 
boss system exists as I have described it? If so how do 
you propose to abolish it?" 



38 WOODROW WILSON 

Mr. Wilson said: 

" Of course I admit it. Its existence is notorious. I 
have made it my business for many years to observe and 
understand that system, and I hate it as thoroughly as 
I understand it. You are quite right in saying that the 
system is bi-partisan ; that it constitutes ' the most dan- 
gerous condition in the public life of our State and nation 
to-day'; and that it has virtually, for the time being, 
* destroyed representative government and in its place set 
up a government of privilege.' I would propose to abol- 
ish it by the reforms suggested in the Democratic plat- 
form, by the election to office of men who will refuse to 
submit to it, and who will lend all their energies to break 
it up, and by pitiless publicity." 

Still hoping to corner the Governor, Mr. Record named 
the bosses : 

" In referring to the Board of Guardians, do you mean 
such Republican leaders as Baird, Murphy, Kean, and 
Stokes? Wherein do the relations of the special inter- 
ests of such leaders differ from the relation of the same 
interests of such Democratic leaders as Smith, Nugent, 
and Davis? " 

Mr. Wilson answering this, said: 

" I refer to the men yon named. I mean Smith, Nugent, 
and Davis. They differ from the others in this, that they 
are in control of the government of the State while the 
others are not, and cannot be if the present Democratic 
ticket is elected." 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 39 

In reply to Mr. Record's question, " Will you join me 
in denouncing the Democratic 'overlords' as parties to a 
political boss system?" Doctor Wilson replied, "Certainly 
I will join you, or any one else, in denouncing and fight- 
ing every and any one of either party who attempts any 
outrages against the government and public morrality." 

Such utterances as these only made the " bosses " 
smile. James Smith, Jr., once remarked, upon an occa- 
sion when he heard Doctor Wilson declare that if elected 
to the governorship he would be left free to exercise a 
leadership uninfluenced by the dictation of any " special 
interests," " He talks like that in Newark, and can get 
away with it. He is a great man." But it was Mr. 
Smith who misunderstood Doctor Wilson ; not the people. 

When the election returns came in, they showed that 
the Republican party, which, we remember, had had con- 
trol of the Legislature for sixteen years, and which had 
elected Republican governors since 1896, was admirably 
walloped. The "Grand Old Elephant" could not hedge 
by attributing the whole of its defeat to the influence of the 
nation-wide revolt against the party in power. That many 
of the causes of the landslide in this State were local, was 
indicated by the plump plurality of more than 49,000 for 
Governor Wilson, whereas ex-Governor John Franklin 
Fort's plurality, in 1907, was only 8000 Republican. 



CHAPTER III 

THE SMITH-MARTINE CONTROVERSY 

" Be thankful for what you get unless it is what is really 
coming to you." — John L. Hobble's column in New York 
Evening World. 

" When scholars become doers then a new era will begin." — 
Dudley Field Malone, Assistant Corporation Counsel of New 
York. 

The bleachers on the diamond are sometimes amazed 
at the combination of honesty and skill exhibited by 
amateur players, who have observed much but practised 
little. From the time the Governor-elect stepped out of 
the batter's box to hit the first curve it promised to be 
a rich, rare, and racy game, between the Machine League 
and the People's Team. The Governor was bound to 
succeed because he gave all his attention to the game 
and none to the grandstand. It was a most exciting 
event. The winning team was to be awarded the United 
States senatorship in the 1911 contest. 

Heretofore the election of a United States senator had 

always been a simple process, executed by the machine, 

40 



NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 41 

" in a corner." The people, of course, hadi had no voice 
in the matter. 

The Senatorial Preference Primary Law, enacted in 
1907, was to be operative for the first time. James E. 
Martine, Democrat, farmer, and reformer, had received 
more votes in the primaries than any other candidate. 
Many legislators of both Houses had promised their con- 
stituents that they would vote for that candidate for 
United States senator who received the highest number 
of votes in the primary contest, and there was a plank, 
as broad as a lumber camp, in the Democratic State 
Platform favoring a national constitutional amendment 
for the election of United States senators by popular vote. 
And the Democrats had swept the State. 

Now were they to prove themselves sidesteppers and 
trimmers or were they to establish a principle which 
should become a sacred precedent? 

It happened that there were a few who, for the sake 
of personal convenience, preferred the former policy 
and they assumed the " What-has-posterity-done-for-us " 
attitude. Among these was James Smith, Jr., the 
courtly State boss, whom Lord Byron might have 
described as: 

" The mildest-mannered man that ever scuttled ship or 
cut a throat; 



42 WOODROW WILSON 

With such true breeding of a gentleman you never could 
divine his inner thought " (before election) ; 
" Let not his mode of raising cash seem strange," 
Although, it is said, that he fleeced the people with 
a cry of protection; 
For into a United States Senator, but change his title, 
" And 't is nothing but taxation." 

(Apologies to Lord Byron's shade.) 

At this juncture it is interesting to recall that before 
Dr. Wilson consented to become a candidate for Gov- 
ernor it was understood that Mr. Smith was out of poli- 
tics and that he was not a prospective candidate for 
a seat in that most distinguished body of distinguishable 
misrepresentatives, Seidlitz-powder reformers, and con- 
spicuously small number of people's men, — the United 
States Senate. 

The people were not given an opportunity of telling 
the State dictator what they thought of him in the 
primaries, because he had not permitted his name to 
be used as a candidate. Thus he had himself given in- 
directly to the public the impression that he was not in 
the contest; particularly, since it was well known that the 
newspapers owned by him had supported the senatorial 
preference privilege in terms of unqualified approval. 

That Mr. Smith was not to enter the political game, had 
been set down in the books as a fact; especially when 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 43 

the State chairman, James Nugent, of the Jim-Jim 
machine, ever present but now deposed, assured several 
assemblymen that " Uncle James " was not to be in the 
senatorial race. 

But men are ever prone to change their minds, and 
so we woke up one morning to find that Mr. Smith was 
a candidate. It really was not much of a surprise for 
we had known this distinguished gentleman a long time, 
and we had every reason to remember him; for he had 
always been of the reversible action type. And, well, — 
when it came to political manoeuvring he certainly could 
skate a figure-eight with an ease and elasticity which, 
for years, had amazed and confounded mere man. At 
political tight-rope dancing he beat anything of which I 
have ever heard. 

It is easy to understand why any man of such wonderful 
resources would possess enough commendable qualities of 
heart and head to insure him many loyal friends on whose 
assistance he could rely, whenever his pleasure required. 
But there were also those who knew Mr. Smith intimately, 
who thought that it was about time to " start something," 
unless we intended to abide forever under the yoke of 
" Smithism." Accordingly, to refresh the memory of the 
old and help towards the education of the young, a few 
reformers got their heads together and published Mr. 



44 WOODROW WILSON 

Smith's record. They announced that his old game, 
which had been played twice to launch his senatorial 
candidacy, was to secure an invitation from his home 
legislative delegation to enter the lists, so as to create 
the impression, " We cannot do without you. Please 
come to our rescue that ' representative government ' may 
be preserved." It was charged upon the best authority 
that means were used by the boss's lieutenants which 
had Biblical sanction for their wisdom, but were entirely 
without legal foundation as to their righteousness, espe- 
cially in cases where the invitation to Mr. Smith was 
forced according to the Scriptural injunction : 

" Agree with thine adversary quickly whilst thou art 
in the way with him, lest at any time the adversary 
deliver thee to the Judge, and the Judge deliver thee 
to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. Verily I 
say unto thee, thou shalt by no means come out from 
thence until thou hast paid the uttermost farthing." 

Most extraordinary things occurred at the midnight 
conferences in Ifflin's Caf6, the Lenni Lenape Club, and 
other exclusive resorts in Newark, followed by mys- 
terious automobile expeditions to the homes of assembly- 
men before the dawn of day. Another thing which the 
reformers showed in their published records of Mr. 
Smith's activities was that 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 45 

" Prior to his political supremacy New Jersey had 
elected consecutively nine Democratic Governors and five 
Democratic Legislatures. James Smith, Jr., was elected 
to the United States Senate in 1893. One year after 
rock-ribbed Democratic New Jersey rolled up a Repub- 
lican majority of nearly fifty thousand, launched a solid 
Republican delegation to Congress, and elected a Legis- 
lature Republican by over sixty. 

" From that time until Woodrow Wilson entered the 
field the State was Republican. Democrats, with their 
eyes open, had repeatedly said that they attributed the 
principal cause of continued Republican success to the 
treachery of their old time monarch, and a continued 
fear since that Democratic success would again bring 
him into power." 



Back of this warning were the thunder-clouds of sus- 
picion, which had hovered in the air since the time 
" when," to quote further from the ex-Senator's record : 

" Mr. Smith had been characterized by Grover Cleve- 
land, as one of the Sugar Trust Senators, who, with four 
other members of that body, had refused to pass the 
Wilson Bill as it came from the House, until the interest 
of the Sugar Trust had been protected to the extent of 
restoring the tax on sugar. 

" Citizens of New Jersey had protested vociferously at 
the time of the official investigation into the report that 
Mr. Smith and other senators had been speculating in 
sugar, and although Senator Smith's memory was amaz- 
ingly lacking in regard to his stock transactions, he 



46 WOODROW WILSON 

testified that it was his impression that he had purchased 
a thousand shares of sugar stock." 

With these facts revivified the people saw the situation as 
it was: stripped of the glamour of that bountiful person- 
age who had contributed so generously to charity, and, as 
the reformers say, to both party machines of New Jersey, 
in order to protect and preserve the special interests. 

But of what use to see clearly if there are no lead- 
ers to guide honestly and wisely? The vision of the 
people had been clearing for years, but the anti-boss 
leaders were at a double disadvantage, because they were 
hopelessly in the minority and they had lacked an execu- 
tive who dared to be a State spokesman. But now times 
had changed, and a kind dispensation of Providence had 
brought forth a man with principles as sound as the Ten 
Commandments, uncompromising and fearless. Even his 
enemies, with their minimum degree of faith in human 
nature, knew that it would be as impossible to approach 
him as it would be " to scale the ramparts of Jehovah 
and pluck from Heaven's diadem its brightest star." 
Neither could this leader be blindfolded by mere sem- 
blance or outward appearances. He called a spade a 
spade, and so when a certain gentleman went to call on 
Woodrow Wilson in November, 1910, " he came away 
sorrowful, for he was very rich." 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 47 

When a pig, walking on a railroad track, meets an 
engine, it has been observed that the engine does not 
alter its course. 

About three months after the visit to which we refer, 

James E. Martine was elected to the United States 

Senate on the first joint ballot of the Legislature. He 

received forty-seven votes, six more than were necessary 

. for election. Mr. Martine had not spent one dollar in 

1 seeking election as senator. Neither had he solicited 

' directly or indirectly the vote of any member of the 

Legislature. 

During the Smith-Martine contest Governor-Elect Wil- 
son had become a most practical and constructive po- 
' litical leader. He had been making some very eloquent, 
grave, and earnest speeches since his election. He had 
also discovered that the opposition to one-man power 
, was more negative than constructive; and that it evinced 
more detestation of bossism than it did the existence of 
| a strong progressive sentiment. 

And this interesting academician had found out in the 
meantime who were the brave mariners in a storm. 
" There were many," to quote from Senator Harry V. 
Osborne, the young prince of Democracy, who engineered 
the fight in Essex, Smith's own county, "who camped in the 
cellar until the cyclone was over and then they emerged." 



48 WOODROW WILSON 

And while the Governor-Elect had been continuing his 
education the people had improved their unprecedented 
opportunity of being taught by the State schoolmaster 
a few lessons concerning the establishment of Democratic 
government. They had passed through the unique experi- 
ence of being led by a State spokesman who believed in 
executive interference where the rights of the people 
were seriously menaced, and yet this interference was in 
no way offensive to any honest believer in popular 
government. 

The prophecy of James Smith, Jr., was fulfilled. " The 
Princeton sage " was, indeed, " the man of the hour," and 
his whole plea had been, " Come and let us reason to- 
gether." There were no words of bitterness, only the 
irresistible appeals of one who had spent nearly thirty 
years in the study of political questions; a student and 
teacher with an abiding faith in Democracy, who saw 
himself and could lead others to see the moral obligation, 
the responsibility of a great opportunity to establish the 
principle of popular election of United States senators 
as a step towards more Democracy. A true American 
who believes that the people see clearly where their hope 
lies, called upon his constituents not to betray a sacred 
trust. There was no tirade against an individual, no j 
violent declamation against any one's character, but a 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 49 

denunciation of the State Machine, as an incident in 
the System, based on the alliance between Privileged 
Business and Politics. 

" It is not," said the new chief of Democracy, " a 
capital process to cut off a wart. You don't have to 
go to the hospital and take an anaesthetic. The thing 
can be done while you wait and it is being done. The 
clinic is open and every man can witness the operation." 

The speeches which the Governor-Elect made during 
this crisis were such as Jefferson might have made. The 
main facts of them will make history. 

" A gentleman was talking to me — a gentleman who 
has been prominent in the public service of this Stale, 
and he said to me, 'This is a fight that is going on all 
over the country, but New Jersey is the bloody angle. . . .' 
He was referring to the battle-field of Gettysburg, where, 
at a certain angle of a stone-wall the very slaughter of 
(he day centred. This has always been known since as 
the bloody angle, and this campaign in New Jersey is the 
bloody angle of national fights. But our fight is not 
like the fight at Gettysburg where gallant heroes were 
engaged on both sides, where the fight was open; for 
in this battle one party is supplying the ammunition 
and keeping under cover, dodging from tree to tree and 
from ambush to ambush, while the other party stands 
in the open and challenges them to the contest; the bloody 
angle indeed, but it will not be our bodies that are in 
the breach. 

" I have heard a great many men hope for compromise. 

4 



50 WOODROW WILSON 

Clod defend us against compromise. Every man who Is 
afraid to stand to his gnns wants compromise. Every 
man who finds a duty difficult to perform wants the 
form of the duty changed, but change it for him and 
you simply confirm his weakness. ... I appeal to Mr. 
Martine never under any circumstances to withdraw. . . . 

" And I want to point out to you that Mr. James 
Smith, Jr., represents not a party but a system; a sys- 
tem of political control, which does not belong to either 
party and which, so far as it can be successfully managed, 
must belong to both parties. Do you know what is true 
of the special interests, at this moment? They have got 
all their baggage packed and they are ready to strike 
camp over night, provided they think it is profitable 
for them to come over to the Democratic party. They 
are waiting to come over bag and baggage and take 
possession of the Democratic party. Will they be welcome? 
Do you want them? There is no question of the Demo- 
cratic party in this business, gentlemen. There is no 
question of any party. I often think in this connection 
of the song in Iolanthe, a comic opera, ' The party I 
belong to is the party I sing this song to. . . .' 

" Business interests are involved in this matter and 
not political principles. These business interests intend, 
if they can, to own the organization ; that is, the govern- 
ing organization in the affairs of America. They cannot 
own it if the business is done in the open. They can 
hold it if it is done under cover. They won't strike their 
camps and move over in the daytime. They will move 
over in the night-time. I pray God we may never wake up 
some fine morning and find them encamped on our side. 

" It is the privilege of the legislators who represent 




( opyright, Brown Bros., New York. 

" Do you know what is true of the special interests at this moment? Thej 
have got all their baggage packed, and they arc ready to strike camp over 
night, provided they think it is profitable for them to come over to the 
Democratic party. They are waiting to come over bag and baggage and 
take possession of the Democratic party. Will they be welcome.' Do you 
want them?"— Woodrow Wilson, during the Smith-Martine contest. 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 51 

1lie Democratic party in the Legislature of New Jersey 
to enjoy the greatness of the people of New Jersey. It 
is their privilege once for all to put New Jersey on 
record as on the people's side, as determined, no matter 
who may suffer for their stand, to see to it that only 
the judgment of the people be registered in this State 
from this time on, and then we shall have established 
our connection with the records of liberty; then we shall 
have taken our place in those handsome annals of history 
which record how men have massed themselves, caught 
a single idea with genuine enthusiasm, forgotten their 
differences, sunk their selfish interests and, united in 
irresistible force, have carried men to the next level of 
achievement, where they can look forward to still greater 
achievements, when not only the histories, but every 
future generation shall look back and bless them and 
say : Those men saw the light and rescued us from those 
things which would have put us to shame; and they 
made it possible for us as self-respecting communities 
to govern our own affairs. 

" Shall we not make this one of the years which shall 
always be marked in the annals of New Jersey as a year 
of regeneration ? " 

fA man's power must be measured in proportion to the 
tests which he can meet, the men whom he can conquer. 
We must judge New Jersey's Governor by this standard : 
by the gigantic size of the man whom he licked; — licked, 
not whipped, because when a man is whipped he can 
" come back," but when he is licked — never. 

Here we must remember that of all political bosses in 



52 WOODROW WILSON 

the U. S. A., New Jersey took the palm, up to 1911. We 
believe that we really had the "biggest, busiest, and bossi- 
est boss which modern time has produced. It is safe to 
say that a careful examination of his record makes the 
work of some similar men in other States look like mere 
child's play. "Yes," a prominent politician said to me, 
" Mr. Smith had something on every one of the other big 
State bosses; Richard Croker once referred to him as 
'The Biggest One-Man Politician in America'; and Grover 
Cleveland, when told that this Democratic United States 
Senator owned a Republican newspaper, said : ' A truly 
remarkable man,' and then repeated thoughtfully, ' Yes, 
a very remarkable man.' " 

We can only give the reader a glimpse of this most 
picturesque of moving pictures, for it would require the 
work of a lifetime to represent him in his " coat of 
many colors." I have heard men of the best standing, 
who began their careers as newsboys or office boys, give 
Mr. Smith the credit for " a start in life." Many times 
they have spoken of his disinterested kindness to them. 
Others have told me of his cold-blooded treachery. Per- 
haps, Fate unkindly gave to him " the sly chameleon 
spirit," and while the present generation is beginning to 
think that it understands him, it must, after all, be left to 
a dispassionate posterity to pronounce a verdict upon him. 




Copyright, Brown Bros., New Vor] 
EX-UNITED STATES SENATOR JAMES SMITH, JR. 
The courtly State Boss, whom, it is said, Richard Croker once desig- 
nated as " The biggest one-man-politician in America." By what standard 1 
shall we judge New Jersey's Governor? By the gigantic size of the man 
whom he licked— licked, not whipped, because when a man is whipped 
he can come back, but when he is licked— never. 



CHAPTER IV 

FROM THE CLASSROOM TO THE STATE HOUSE * 

" To work for the people, that is the great and urgent need." 
— Victor Hugo. 

" The modern university is no longer a cloister," said 
Governor Wilson to the writer in response to a statement 
to the effect that some people thought that he had emerged 
from such a place and thereby marvelled at his record. 

" When a young man inquires of me, ' What is the 
college for?' or 'Why do we study a certain subject?' 
I often cite, as an illustration, the double trapeze. No 
one ever asks, what do we use the double trapeze for. 
It is obviously for the purpose of developing the muscles 
that they may become elastic and ready for action. So 
with mental discipline, obtained through a collegiate 
course, which furnishes the best training. The powers 
of the mind are developed so as to make it flexible, that 
the faculties may be brought readily into play." 

" Yes, we can do that which we have not been trained 

1 The reader will remember that the principal contest in the 
Smith-Martine controversy occurred before Governor Wilson's 
inauguration. — Author's note. 

53 



54 WOODROW WILSON 

to do, providing the faculties have been developed and 
rightly used," said the Governor, without the least hesi- 
tation, in reply to a query concerning the fitness of 
disciplined minds for undertaking new enterprises. 

The chief State executive had been in office about five 
months when he said this, and there had been " some- 
thing doing " every day ; so that he was the first con- 
venient example of his own theory which occurred to 
the interviewer's mind. 

The slender man, who was sitting in the Governor's 
swivel chair, talking so smoothly and convincingly, is 
five feet eleven inches in height. He has a high fore- 
head, penetrating gray eyes, and a mouth expressive of 
both kindness and firmness. His manner is cordial, his 
countenance frank. His face suggests a keen sense of 
humor, and those who associate with him are frequently 
treated to one of his original witticisms or humorous 
stories, of which he has a large supply. His humor is 
not unlike that of Lincoln, and its homely pointing 
of a moral puts one in mind of Franklin. Alto- 
gether, Woodrow Wilson is an attractive and stimulat- 
ing personality, of great intellectual power and deep 
culture. 

In talking with him one thinks : This man has a keen 
sense of justice, an admirable sense of proportion; his 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 55 

knowledge is profound; his keen intellect grasps a situa- 
tion quickly; he discriminates carefully; he is self- 
reliant, yet open to conviction, but he must see things 
from a broad perspective before he makes a decision ; he 
is energetic, yes his energy is boundless, but there is an 
echo of precision in his actions even when he lets loose, 
when his vitality is at white heat. One listens, observes, 
thinks, goes away, and thinks again and again. It is 
not the stimulus of an effervescent personality which 
one feels and then forgets, but rather the inspiration 
which comes from a trained thinker, who can express 
himself clearly, eloquently, and persuasively. He uses 
the best diction. When he speaks he plays neither to 
the orchestra nor to the gallery, but both understand 
him. In leaving a hall where he had spoken to a mixed 
audience, I heard such remarks as these: 
" By George, he means it. He is no fourflusher ! " 
" What faultless diction, what a masterly address ! " 
" Political convictions intense but sound." 
" There is character back of a man like that. Such 
utterances only emanate from a man of immovable 
resolution." 

" What a combination of energy, power, and con- 
science," and then : 

" They can't put anything over on him ! " 



56 WOODROW WILSON 

It was, indeed, a tremendous surprise to the shrewd 
politicians to find on board the ship of state a skilful 
and efficient political captain, who understood the most 
direct course, who read the compass with perfect ac- 
curacy, and who saw each flashlight and signal in time 
to avoid the breakers and shoals. It was true that the 
new commander had never before held a captain's 
license. He had never even been a first mate in the game 
of politics. 

To be perfectly literal, he had never, up to the time 
of his inauguration as governor, visited the Trenton 
Legislature. To use the Governor's own words, " The 
people hardly knew what to expect of me; the dice had 
been shaken against them so often ; now they were afraid 
that they had a man who did not know how to shake 
dice." 

The outcome of the senatorial contest inspired hopes 
for better things, but few dared to look forward to such 
a program of reform as wc shall hereafter describe. 
It would have been a very irrational thing for even the 
most optimistic to have hoped for so much as the State 
received, unless, perchance, some diligent students had 
read the voluminous works of their scholarly chief, and 
made a study of the former university president's 
methods of handling men and affairs, while he occupied 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 57 

the chief place of authority in one of our oldest and 
best established seats of learning. 

In fact, it would have been necessary to penetrate 
further than this the background of this fascinating 
man's life if one would have anticipated successfully his 
career. What were the influences which had brought 
him forward? By what route had Fate decreed to land 
her man? To what extent, and how, had Fate been 
assisted in her purpose? 

" That is best blood that hath most iron in it." 
Scotch-Irish blood has always contained plenty of red 
corpuscles; and when sustained by the oxygen of a 
Southern atmosphere, impregnated with a love of jus- 
tice and freedom, these corpuscles are not likely to be- 
come depleted, particularly when stimulated in their 
early existence by the privations incident to a long period 
of bloodshed and dreadful days of reconstruction. 

For Woodrow Wilson is a son of Southern soil, who 
retains vivid recollections of his boyhood and youthful 
days when the Civil War and the reconstruction period 
brought suffering and hardship to the Wilson family. 

Reverend Joseph R. Wilson, a distinguished scholar 
and theological professor of the Presbyterian faith, was 
his son's teacher, mentor, and guide. The deeply pious 
streak in Governor Wilson's nature, his love of books, 



58 WOODROW WILSON 

his passion for idealism, and his heart full of sympathy 
for every honest man's cause, which is written in every 
line of his thoughtful face, are but the natural qualities, 
inherited from a father and mother, both descended from 
those who devoted their lives to literature and the Church. 

I once heard him say : " It is very difficult, indeed, 
for a man, for a boy, who knows the Scripture ever to 
get away from it. It haunts him like an old song. It 
follows him like the memory of his mother. It reminds 
him like the word of an old and revered teacher. It 
forms part of the warp and woof of his life." 

Naturally, Woodrow Wilson's parents, who appreciated 
his studious inclinations, gave him the advantages of 
the best tutors and schools. Like most ministers, the 
Reverend Joseph Wilson moved occasionally. Thus 
Staunton, Virginia, where Governor Wilson was born, 
December 28, 1856 ; Augusta, Georgia ; Charleston, South 
Carolina; and Wilmington, North Carolina, each has 
a claim upon the statesman, whose prestige is daily 
attracting the serious attention of increasing numbers. 

I interviewed James Sprunt, British Vice-Consul, one 
of the oldest and most conservative citizens of Wilming- 
ton, North Carolina, who has known Woodrow Wilson 
from boyhood, and who knew his parents, intimately. I 
asked for information as to Governor Wilson's early years. 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OYER 51) 

This distinguished Southerner, who weighed very care- 
fully every word which he uttered, said: 

" From a boy Woodrow Wilson was a thinker and 
scholar. His mind was much beyond his years and no 
one who knew him was surprised by his later achieve- 
ments. He came honestly and naturally by his great 
qualities of heart and mind, for his father, whose memory 
we revere, and his sainted mother, who was a Woodrow, 
were not of common clay. The father was a giant in 
physical and mental proportions, and his mother was 
one of the brightest and best of women. 

" I admire Governor Wilson, and I am proud of his 
record in public life. His leadership in our political 
affairs would mean much for the good of the American 
people. His great learning, his exact scholarship, his 
balanced judgment, his rugged honesty, and his profound 
knowledge of political science place him, I think, far 
above all other prominent Democrats, as the reform 
candidate for President." 

Sticklers who insist that a square inch of heredity 
germinates more character than a square mile of environ- 
ment will be gratified to discover long lines of ancestral 
virility in both the Woodrow and the Wilson families. 
But after we have pried diligently into the past and 
not been disappointed, what is more refreshing than to 
know that the man of the present generation lives up 
to his traditions and not on them? Can we conceive 
of anything more to our heart's desire than the one who 



60 WOODROW WILSON 

is inwardly conscious of a rich inheritance, but who 
modestly fears that he may in some way fall short of 
meeting the responsibilities which his heritage brings 
him? 

A man who has caught the spirit of Woodrow Wilson 
and his traditions is the Rev. Dr. Peyton H. Hoge, of 
Peewee Valley, Kentucky, who chats of the Wilsons and 
Woodrows in this fashion: 

" I was the successor of Dr. Joseph R. Wilson, as 
Presbyterian pastor, in Wilmington, North Carolina. I 
first met him when I went to the General Assembly of 
the Southern Presbyterian Church of which he was the 
clerk for over a quarter of a century. I presented him 
a letter from the Session of the church filled with ex- 
pressions of their devotion to him, and commending me, 
a young pastor, to his interest. I shall never forget 
the fatherly greeting that he gave me nor the kind and 
noble words that he said to me. He was a man of most 
dignified presence, with the head of a senator and a 
leonine mass of silvery hair. His manner was stately 
but redeemed from austerity by great benignity of counte- 
nance and kindliness of address. His English was mas- 
terly, his diction superb, and his quick and ready wit 
wax spoken of in every circle. In nearly every house 
in Wilmington his portrait hung in some place of honor. 
I felt everywhere that I went that there was a high 
tradition to be maintained. 

" Once when Reverend Wilson came to Wilmington to 
deliver an anniversary sermon during my pastorate, he 
read me a letter from his son Woodrow. It was full 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 61 

of filial devotion and loving memories of the people and 
of the place, and at the same time of the tender insight 
into the mingled feelings of joy and sorrow that the 
visit must bring his father, for this was not long after 
his mother had been taken from them. 

" I never met Mrs. Wilson, but the parsonage or manse, 
in which Mrs. Hoge and I lived belonging to and ad- 
joining the church, was made beautiful by the roses and 
oilier flowers in the culture of which Mrs. Wilson was 
an adept. The room of the church nearest to the manse 
was the infant or primary room of the Sunday-school, 
in the building of which she had been greatly interested 
and where she reigned supreme. It was also the meet- 
ing-place of the women of whose Missionary Society she 
was the organizer and president. She had the fine strong 
intellect for which her brother, the celebrated Dr. James 
Woodrow, was famous. 

" Marion Woodrow, Governor Wilson's aunt, was my 
mother's dearest friend. In going through mother's let- 
ters after her death I often had to stop to read those 
of Marian Woodrow. There are no such letters now, 
so beautiful in their handwriting, so faultless in their 
expression, and so filled, as letters never are now, with 
beautiful thoughts on all one's reading and experience. 
They bore the stamp of genius and the impress of a 
lofty soul. But alas! they were destroyed through an 
accident. They would be invaluable now in seeking to 
trace to their sources some of those elements of genius 
and power that make Woodrow Wilson the coming man, 
the man of the hour. 

" The last time I saw Mr. Wilson was at the Governors' 
Conference in Louisville, in 1!)1(). He was the lion of the 
day, and when I succeeded in finding him for a few 



62 WOODROW WILSON 

minutes' conversation, he wanted to talk of old friends, 
the old church, and the old town of Wilmington. 

" I told him that my greatest wish was that his dear 
father might know what he had now become. He re- 
ceived this with no affected modesty, but with the con- 
sciousness of one who has a mission and a responsibility." 

One of Governor Wilson's schoolmates in Columbia, 
South Carolina, speaks appreciatively of his early asso- 
ciations with his now distinguished friend : " He was a 
gentle, manly boy. I was several years younger than he 
and often at recess he worked my ' sums ' for me." 

Miss Helen G. McMaster, also of Columbia, South 
Carolina, says: "Young Wilson always impressed me 
as shy; I used to see him quietly reading in his father's 
study and he never came into the parlor to see the com- 
pany. He was a thoughtful, retiring boy given to books." 

" The spirit of a youth who means to be of note begins 
betimes." Before he was eighteen years of age, Wood- 
row Wilson entered the Freshman class of Davidson 
College, North Carolina, where he remained only one 
year. This college is, and was, at that time, small; so 
that it was thought best to send the promising young 
student to an institution which would offer him larger 
opportunities. Princeton, with its ancient traditions 
dating back to 1746, its long record of usefulness, and 
its list of famous graduates, seemed a most desirable 
place for the young man to continue his schooling. It 
was bore that he matriculated in 1875, and the Prince- 




Copyright, Underwood, New \ rk. 

GOVERNOR WILSON IS INTERESTED IN ATHLETICS. 

Here he is watching a Princeton-Yale football game. As ;i collegian 
mg Wilson himself played a good game of baseball. 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 63 

ton Class of 1879 proudly numbers him among its 
graduates. 

In college young Wilson was popular with both the 
faculty and his student associates. He won the reputa- 
tion of being a genial fellow, in modern terms, " a good 
mixer," warm-hearted, companionable, and worth know- 
ing, both for the social side and the virile qualities of 
mind which he possessed. He could do more than one 
thing, for his records show that not only did he study 
well and read omnivorously, but he also played a good 
game of baseball. 

What impresses us most is that he began early to 
think seriously, which fact ought to be an inspiration 
to every young man in the American commonwealth, for 
it must be admitted, by the closest observer, that most 
young men never attain much because they are so late 
in waking up, in finding themselves, — that is, if they ever 
wake up at all. 

But this man, Wilson, evidently found himself early, 
as is indicated by his literary ability recognized during 
his collegiate years, and his youthful genius in oratory, 
in which practice he spent most of his spare time, not 
in bombastic spurting, but in actual hard work. He had 
a natural fondness for Edmund Burke, whose wisdom 
and style attracted him. By degrees he discovered that 



64 WOODROW WILSON 

the study of law promised to interest him more than 
anything else. He devoted two years to this, at the 
University of Virginia Law School, where he remained 
until 1881, when he captured the medal in oratory 
awarded by the Thomas Jefferson literary society. 

Two years of professional law practice in Atlanta, 
Georgia, proved to him that the theory and principles 
of legal science engaged his interest more than did the 
business side. Perhaps this was because of his inborn 
tendency to go to the root of things, and to obtain a 
mature view, before assuming to have the qualifications 
to experiment with A's and B's affairs. The field of 
specialization seems to have attracted him first, in order 
that he might obtain the mental discipline and judg- 
ment necessary to qualify him for dealing in general 
principles. 

We may observe that it has often been a matter of 
record, although it is by no means an established fact, 
that the period of incubation in true leaders is com- 
paratively long. A real leader is of necessity modest 
and will not thrust himself into places of deep and grave 
responsibilities requiring experience. He prefers to fit 
himself for a place of service, and to trust that his 
capacity for serving will be measured by his fellow-men, 
who will seek him and place him where his opportunity 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 65 

to serve will be in proportion to his preparation, talents, 
and degree of usefulness. 

To return from this digression to the turning point in 
Woodrow Wilson's career. Dean Kinley, of the Univer- 
sity of Illinois, says that when he was a fellow-student 
with Mr. Wilson at Johns Hopkins, Wilson explained to 
him his determination not to follow the law, saying, 
" The law has ceased to be a profession and has become 
a mere trade." That he chose wisely when he decided 
to return to his studies is apparent from the brilliant 
record which he soon made in Johns Hopkins University, 
Baltimore, Maryland, where he received his Ph.D. degree. 
It was while here that his first book appeared. This 
was Doctor Wilson's Congressional Government, which 
became a standard text-book in many high schools and 
colleges ; and it won cordial recognition in many foreign 
countries. Sydney Webb, of London, once told Winthrop 
More Daniels, that he thought that Mr. Bryce derived the 
idea of Bryce's American Commonwealth from Mr. Wil- 
son's Congressional Government. It is a comprehensive 
study of the United States Constitution in its practical 
application to the problems of government and the exi- 
gencies arising under it. The Constitution is vigorously 
upheld; but the uses to which it has sometimes been 
put are shown in certain instances to have been wrong. 



GO WOODROW WILSON 

Doctor Wilson makes clear in this book his belief that 
reforms can be achieved by constitutional methods and 
that our problems can be solved by law without recourse 
to revolutionary processes. So masterly a production 
from the pen of a student, not yet thirty, gave a true 
index of what might be expected of him when he should 
reach maturer years. 

It seems most natural that such a mind, with its thirst 
for knowledge and its aptitude for discretion and pru- 
dence, should have sought to discipline itself further, 
and to insure greater wisdom by seeking an outlet for 
its energies in a vocation where one's resourcefulness is 
perpetually tested through the stimulus which one gives 
to other minds; where an ideal must be put into daily 
practice, if one is to win and retain confidence and 
esteem; and where there may be established one of the 
most delightful human relationships, through the con- ! 
tinual contact of individual with individual, where both 
are striving toward the realization of the best. And so at \ 
the conclusion of his post-graduate course, we are gratified 
to see this serious scholar, who above all other things he [ 
can do can make others think, entering the great army of I 
teachers, where he was to set an example worthy of the 
emulation of every member of the teaching profession, and 
of all who aspire to serve humanity through this means. 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 67 

It was a most famous school, Rryn Mawr College, 
Pennsylvania, noted for its high standards, that was so 
fortunate as to secure the services of this worthy Pro- 
fessor of Political Science. In fact, Dr. Wilson was one 
of the original faculty of Bryn Mawr, and he helped to 
organize its courses of study. 

It was ahout this time that this most natural sort 
of man did another most natural thing. The balmy 
Southern air is conducive, so the poets say, to dreams 
filled with emotion, tenderness, and romance. They tell 
us that in the Sunny South the azure skies azure a little 
bit more than they do in any other part of the country. 
However this may be, it is certain that our Johns Hop- 
kins post-graduate displayed the same degree of versatil- 
ity while working for his degree there that he had 
indicated by the variety of his activities while a student 
at Princeton; for he fouud time for other things, besides 
attending lectures and preparing a scholarly thesis. He 
had made an occasional trip to Savannah, Georgia, where 
dwelt a charming Southern lady of rare beauty and 
accomplishments; and, a short time before Woodrow 
Wilson became Ph.D., he also received another degree, 
and became Woodrow Wilson, M.M., for he married 
Miss Ellen Louise Axson, of a distinguished Savannah 
family, descended from the Cavaliers. That the < 



68 WOODROW WILSON 

ernor showed as excellent judgment, in this important 
matter, as he has since made apparent in every step 
of his career, is proved by the ideal domestic happiness 
which has been the good fortune of the Wilson family. 
Mrs. Wilson is an invaluable complement to her dis- 
tinguished husband, an ideal wife and mother, and a 
landscape artist, whose paintings in oil have been honored 
with approval by the best painters and art critics in 
America. 

Three charming daughters have blessed the Wilson 
union : Margaret, who is the possessor of a rich soprano 
voice, and who is now taking voice culture in New York ; 
Jessie Woodrow, who, like her mother, is an artist of 
ability, and a sociological worker, whose services at the 
Light House, Philadelphia, have helped to make that 
church settlement one of the most successful in America ; 
and Eleanor Randolph, who is now an art student at 
the Academy of Fine Arts, in Philadelphia. 

Three years after Governor Wilson's marriage he re- 
signed his professorship at Bryn Mawr; and for two 
years occupied the chair of History and Political 
Economy at Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecti- 
cut. While here he was appointed Professor of Juris- 
prudence and Political Economy at Princeton University, 
where he entered upon his duties in 1890, succeeding 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OYER 69 

to a chair made famous by his predecessor, Professor 
Alexander Johnston, perhaps the foremost of the newer 
scientific students of American political history. 

The power to kindle interest and to make his subjects 
alive, by leading those in his classes to comprehend fads 
in their relationship to our social and economic organi- 
zation, characterized his instruction. The courses which 
Doctor Wilson presented became very popular and he 
was soon recognized as a man of unusual attainments, 
both by the students and the university authorities. 

His services on faculty committees added to his use- 
fulness ; and he did some of his best work as an import- 
ant member of the Committee on Discipline. To illus- 
trate his intense practicality, it should be noted that 
Professor Wilson had mastered shorthand that he 
might not miss the advantages afforded by this ready 
means of keeping a safety-deposit vault filled with cor- 
rect and valuable data, available for use whenever the 
occasion requires. This acquisition, with the ability to 
initiate and to execute plans, made the popular professor 
indispensable in the committee work of the university. 
Notice, — that he must have been ever conscious of the 
laws of competition ; and that he must have realized 
that it is necessary for every competitor, in any field, 
to equip himself with excellent credit; a superior grade 



70 WOODROW WILSON 

of stock, and a general outfit of practical utilities, if he 
is to be advanced to the place where he may exercise 
his greatest usefulness. 

Woodrow Wilson, as a member of the faculty at Prince- 
ton, then, could do many things that the average pro- 
fessor cannot, or does not do. Many of those who worked 
with him predicted that he was a marked man, chosen 
by destiny to come forward. 

When Yale selected eight men from the whole country 
to receive the degree of Doctor of Letters, at its bi- 
centennial celebration, Woodrow Wilson was one of the 
eight. He has been accorded the degree of Doctor of 
Laws by Lake Forest College, Tulane University, the 
University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Vir- 
ginia ; and he was recently chosen by Harvard University 
to deliver the Phi Beta Kappa oration at Commence- 
ment. 

While connected with Princeton University Doctor 
Wilson's prolific pen was always busy, although the most 
important of his text-books Professor Wilson completed 
during his professorship at Wesleyan. The State, a text- 
book on historical and practical politics, has had the 
rare distinction of serving as the accredited text in over 
a hundred universities, including in the number, Oxford 
University, England. After he became established at 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 71 

Princeton he wrote continually for the best periodicals; 
and that he was producing things worth while was as- 
sured by the constant demands which the publishers made 
of him. 

A writer in The Library of the "World's Best Literature 
says of Woodrow Wilson's literary work : 

" It is conspicuous for its suggestive thought and thor- 
ough knowledge. Dr. Wilson's studies of contemporary 
politics and institutions have won wide attention for 
their thoughtful and searching analysis, presented in a 
style of exceptional attraction, and inspired by a sincere 
desire to interpret and promote the good in American 
methods. His more general essays upon topics historical 
or literary have, by their decided charm, made Professor 
Wilson known to a far larger audience than a profes- 
sional writer or teacher upon such themes usually reaches. 

" For the series called Epochs of American History he 
wrote a book on Division and Re-Union, 1893, in which 
the disintegrating influences of the Civil War and the 
subsequent processes of recovery are traced. From 1893 
also dates An Old Master and Other Political Essays 
containing a delightful appreciation of Adam Smith, and 
further papers developing the author's views upon poli- 
tical principles and forms. The volume Mere Literature, 
1896, displayed his ability as an essayist in the wider 
sense, upon themes calling for a synthetic literary hand- 
ling. An admirable sketch of George Washington, clearly 
and sympathetically delineating his characteristics on 
the social and domestic side, appeared in 1897. 

" In the present tendency to adopt the scientific method 



72 WOODROW WILSON 

in writing on politics and history, and to deify the 
accumulation and parade of material, scholars of Pro- 
fessor Wilson's type are needed and welcome. He not 
only insists in his writings upon the necessity and value 
of the literary method in such studies but in his own 
person illustrates his meaning. He is a student who 
makes past and present vivid by his interpretation of 
the raw stuff of facts and records." 

The year in which his History of the American People 
appeared, 1002, Doctor Wilson was elected president of 
Princeton University, by the unanimous vote of the 
Board of Trustees. He was the first layman ever chosen 
for this office. The position of college president in 
modern times has called for more executive ability than 
what is termed scholarship. That the new president 
labored under many difficulties, in the early days of his 
administration, as well as later, is evidenced by the fact 
that much of the available income of the institution was 
tied up by arrangements made before his accession to 
the presidency. But the Doctor has always been equal 
to the overcoming of obstacles, and he devises methods, 
and adopts readily processes suitable to any emergency. 
He can bide his time or act quickly as the circum- 
stances require; so he resolved not to be hampered by 
conditions which could not be immediately altered, and 
cen I red his attention and energies on things at hand, 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 73 

a course which he has pursued since his entrance into 
politics. 

Before Dr. Wilson became president the university 
curriculum had become confused, almost chaotic, at least 
antiquated. There were three hundred and fifty courses 
of study. Mental indigestion was a chronic disorder. 
Doctor Wilson set himself to the task of reforming and 
simplifying this unwieldy and complicated system. He 
systematized four well-defined courses leading to four 
distinct degrees ; and thus brought order out of academic 
confusion, by arranging the studies of each course in a 
logical sequence. Naturally, under the old system of 
many courses, the chaos was intensified by the lowering 
of standards. Higher standards of admission and of 
routine scholarship were now established. 

So much for Doctor Wilson's first reform stroke. Now 
for the second. This consisted of the introduction by 
the president, of the preceptorial system, which brought, 
an innovation; but to set this new idea into motion 
money was called for. By this time, 1905, the trustees 
of the University had discovered President Wilson's busi- 
ness capacity, and they had begun to augment the income 
of the college. He had won their confidence through 
attention to business and self-abnegation. 

To carry out the preceptorial plan, sixty-five new men 



74 WOODROW WILSON 

were added to the faculty, each with the title of assistant 
professor, and the privilege of voting in faculty meetings. 
Groups of students numbering from two to five at one 
time, never exceeding five, were assigned to each pre- 
ceptor for his personal supervision. " The object of this 
arrangement," as described by its originator, " was to 
draw the faculty and the undergraduates together into 
a common body of students old and young, among whom 
a real community of interest, pursuit, and feeling would 
prevail." The preceptors devoted their energies to the 
work of counselling and guiding, meeting those assigned 
to them three or more times a week. The students' ex- 
ercises with them were conferences not recitations. This 
intimate intercourse of personalities produced most satis- 
factory results, and made the labors of those who took 
part in the work not tasks, but delightful pursuits which 
led to a natural enjoyment of science and letters. The 
habit of reading, practically lost under the lecture sys- 
tem, was recultivated. Students were assisted in making 
a right choice in the selection of books and they were 
led to a broader appreciation of the best literature. This 
new system attracted wide attention and the merits of 
it appealed strongly to the student body. There was 
everything to be gained by it and nothing to be lost, since 
the preceptors neither set nor corrected examinations. 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 75 

This feature of President Wilson's college administra- 
tion is regarded by many educators as his principal 
achievement during his presidential career, but the pro- 
ject conceived by him, after he had the precej)torial 
system well under way, would probably have surpassed 
in breadth of results any of his other college reforms if 
he had not been checked in the course of the progress 
of his next effort. 

The quadrangle system, or " quad plan," was, in its 
inception w r ith Doctor Wilson, wholly an educational 
project. It was not until the opposition of privileged 
individuals had blocked this scheme, that this educational 
policy was seen to have been opposed by the same kind 
of influences which seek in political life to uphold special 
privilege. 

Under the abuse of the lecture system Dr. Wilson be- 
lieved that intellectual vitality among the generality of 
college students had been undermined, and that with the 
exception of a mechanical compliance with certain set 
tasks the spontaneous activities of college boys had been 
too largely absorbed by non-academic interests and pur 
suits. Referring to these influences, President Wilson 
said. " The side-shows have become so numerous, so divert- 
ing, so important if you will, that they have eaten up the 
circus, and, we, in the main tent, are often obliged to 



76 WOODROW WILSON 

whistle before our audiences, humiliated and discouraged." 
These activities, to a remarkable degree, centred about 
the self-constituted social organizations, known as the 
permanent upper class clubs, for Princeton excludes 
the fraternities as such. The upper class clubs, at Prince- 
ton, of which there are over a dozen, have handsome 
properties and are essentially the counterparts of the 
social clubs in any great city. Naturally, as their mem- 
bership includes only about one half of the two upper 
classes, and as their standards of maintenance put them 
beyond the reach of students of limited means, a line of 
cleavage is sharply drawn between the club members and 
the non-members. Before a student is admitted to mem- 
bership, it must be assured beyond a doubt that he con- 
forms to a very exacting social standard, even in one or 
two instances partaking of hereditary qualifications. 
Many who fail of an election to a club, or to what they 
regard as an eligible club, feel their college career is 
blighted, in that they are in some large measure de- 
barred from the fellowship of their more fortunate class- 
mates. Some have even felt that they must leave college 
in acute disappointment over their ill-success in this 
respect. The imperative necessity of " making a club " 
works downward upon the two younger classes. They 
must shun anything that would seem like catering to 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 77 

upper class club men to insure their election; and they 
not unnaturally fall into small cliques bent upon demon- 
strating negatively by smug conformity to conventions 
their fitness for club membership. The whole system is 
divisive in its effects, breaking down wholesome sponta- 
neous mixture of all kinds of men in college, and con- 
fining men in large degree to the standards of their own 
small social set. 

It was Doctor Wilson's plan to reinvigorate intellec- 
tual interests by the close contact and stimulation of 
teachers living at close range and on terms of friendly 
intimacy with their students; and the artificial barriers 
erected by club conditions to a ready and complete 
association of all sorts and conditions of students, he 
had hoped to eradicate by assimilating the external 
conditions of college life and residence, so that these 
barriers created by the clubs might be removed. Dr. 
Wilson had hoped to institute a process which would 
not annihilate the clubs, but which would reorganize 
them on a basis of democracy, where all students might 
enjoy their advantages. This he proposed to do by 
annexing the clubs to the University which was to con- 
trol them and make their usefulness universal. Thus the 
president's quadrangle system was designed to break 
down the lines of cleavage between those in the clubs 



78 WOODROW WILSON 

and those on the outside. Each quadrangle was to fur- 
nish what the best club furnished, including the dormi- 
tories. The club houses were to be maintained in a 
comparatively economical way, under the administration 
of the University ; and each unit was to house and board 
about one hundred men of all four classes, with an 
admixture of the teaching force, in modest comfort but 
without luxury. 

When first presented to the Board of Trustees, this 
plan, which was a novel departure from tradition, seemed 
feasible, and it was voted to adopt it, with only one man 
dissenting. It seemed too good to be true that such an 
extraordinary change for the better should be brought 
about with such apparent ease; but the friends of democ- 
racy rejoiced too soon, for the summer following the 
trustees' decision the university alumni clubs started 
strenuous opposition to the proposed reorganization, thus 
creating the first breach between Doctor Wilson and the 
Princeton authorities. Here he had to fight his first 
battle for the forces of democracy against "special 
privilege." But the odds were tremendously against him, 
although he had the support of a very large percentage 
of the faculty and of the bulk of the student body. The 
wealthy alumni brought so much pressure to bear upon 
the university board that in the fall of 1907 the trustees 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 79 

voted to request the president to withdraw the quad- 
rangle plan. 

Doctor Wilson withdrew it, but with keen reluctance, 
for he knew it meant the defeat of academic democracy 
and the triumph of class privilege. No longer could lie 
entertain the hope that every student might breathe the 
air of democratic freedom within the Princeton domains. 
Doctor Wilson had not wanted to see his policy prevail 
because it was his; but rather because he wanted to 
see privileges equally distributed, which would give every 
man his best chance. 

With such an innate love of the people's rights, is it 
to be wondered at that this ideal Democrat went into 
politics? Would it not have been most inexplicable if 
he had resisted this irrepressible tendency to fight for 
popular government? 

The culminating difficulty in President Wilson's Prince- 
ton career came when the new Graduate School was to 
be erected. He wanted to substitute simplicity, eco- 
nomy, and efficiency in building, for architectural 
splendor and unnecessary magnificence. His idea was 
to develop professorships, create new chairs, found 
scholarships, build up opportunity, and provide the 
best training for citizenship. lie advocated the use 
of money for making and developing men, instead of 



80 WOODROW WILSON 

putting it into unnecessary purchases of bricks and 
mortar. 

In this plan, too, he was opposed; for the traditions 
of Princeton called for the most expensive buildings, 
with elaborate furnishings for the interior, and artistic 
exterior surfaces which bear no indication of economy. 
That the utmost extravagance prevailed in the construc- 
tion of the new Graduate School is proven bj the author- 
ized statement that it represents an investment of seven 
thousand dollars per capita of students to be housed 
therein. This vast expenditure of funds for building 
seemed to Doctor Wilson inconsistent with a proper 
sense of proportion; for he is a prudent manager. He 
studied and audited the budget of the University with 
as much care and precision as a multi-millionaire would 
exercise in the management of a colossal enterprise. But 
it is hard to convince most plutocrats that a great por- 
tion of surplus capital should be devoted to the general 
interests of humanity. They are more inclined to think 
that the bulk of it should be appropriated to the per- 
petuation of their own names and memories; — then if 
there are any husks left they may be given to the 
masses, but even then generally with a string tied to 
them. 

Of course there were many members of the Million- 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OYER 81 

aires' Club who poured funds generously into the coffers 
of Princeton, and this they did with worthy and com- 
mendable purposes, but, too often, with the proviso of 
dictating the objects for which their money should be 
used. But there were a few whom President Wilson had 
to disabuse of the idea that because they gave money 
they could dictate the academic policy of the University. 
It took courage to do this, but the Doctor has never 
lacked in this most essential element of honor. He po- 
litely assured some most estimable gentlemen that their 
privileges terminated with their specifications for the 
use of their donations for certain buildings, students' 
prizes, and class scholarships. Emphatically they could 
not give money to be used for educating people accord- 
ing to the personal ideas and ideals of the donors. 
Princeton must remain a free and independent institu- 
tion of learning, so long as Woodrow Wilson was its 
academic head. Professors must be allowed a free hand 
in their various departments, and the president and the 
faculty were to determine what standards should be 
established and how they were to be maintained. In 
other words there was no compromise with " special 
privilege." The social life might be governed by pluto- 
cracy; but the class-room work and instruction must be 
kept democratic. 



82 WOODROW WILSON 

Even the most thoroughbred aristocrats on Princeton's 
board saw President Wilson's point of view, although 
they could not always think in his terms. They, at 
least, knew the man to be honest, fearless, and most 
efficient; and they were nearly all glad to retain him 
as the University's official head. 

P>ut it is not surprising that the field of oppor- 
tunity afforded by the office of college president in a 
university where conditions tended toward aristocracy 
did not enable Doctor Wilson to exersice to the 
best advantage the numerous resources within himself; 
and that he was called to a place of distinction which 
corresponds better with the attainments and capabili- 
ties of the man. The one " who has been faithful over 
a few things " ought to go on being made " ruler over 
many." 

When Doctor Wilson resigned the presidency of Prince- 
ton, after he had accepted the gubernatorial nomination 
in 1910, he left behind him a record which gave him 
the rank of America's foremost living historian in that 
field which deals with the political and social develop- 
ment of the nation. Princeton, under his administra- 
tion, had grown more rapidly than ever before; and the 
retiring president left its affairs in a most prosperous 
and flourishing condition. He had proved himself a con- 




While Woodrow Wilson was President of Princeton University he 
politely assured some most estimable gentlemen that because they 
gave money to the institution, they could not dictate its academic 
policy. Here the good Doctor fought his liist battles for Democracy. 
Never, for an instant, did he compromise with special privilege ! 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 83 

structive educator. Now he was about to prove himself 
a constructive statesman. 

The New York World in commenting upon Woodrow 
Wilson as a candidate for Governor of New Jersey, said : 

" Of all the candidates for any office in any State the 
man who has done the most to raise the political, moral, 
and intellectual level of the campaign is Woodrow Wilson 
of New Jersey. Like Lincoln, Mr. Wilson has put the 
thoughts of a statesman into simple, homely, nervous 
speech, touched with humor, and convincing in earnest- 
ness. At a time when unbridled speech is sadly common 
he has been constant in courtesy, he has not shuffled, he 
has not evaded any issue. Not often in recent years has 
any American State had an opportunity of electing as 
Governor a man of such capacity and fitness. For New 
Jersey not to secure Woodrow Wilson's services would 
not be a New Jersey misfortune merely, it would be a 
national misfortune." 

As Governor of our State he has measured up to and 
gone beyond the expectations of even his most ardent 
admirers. 

Dudley Field Malone in a recent speech, commenting 
upon the New York Sun's designation of Governor Wil- 
son as a " peripatetic philosopher," said, " If more of 
our ' peripatetic philosophers ' who gangrene in our 
universities would go out and work like Governor 
Wilson, it would be better for the country." 



84 WOODROW WILSON 

As governor, we shall see that he has demonstrated 
a most remarkable capacity for translating himself from 
the world of author's politics to the practical institution 
itself, without the " loss of force or momentum." 



CHAPTER V 

KEEPING FAITH WITH THE PEOPLE 

" Woodrow Wilson stands before the people to-day as that 
rarest of phenomena, a public man who, elevated to office, 
faithfully keeps his pre-election promises. 

" When he indicated his willingness to resign the presidency 
of Princeton and lead his party as candidate for Governor of 
New Jersey he was looked upon as an interesting but mistaken 
gentleman; when he appeared 'on the stump' in effective speeches 
and met the wiles of his opponents with political sagacity, he 
became a factor seriously to be considered; when he won the 
election, he took rank as a national character; and since he has 
put on the robes of office, he has displayed qualities that reveal 
his equipment for a part in public affairs for which no other 
man in the nation seems equally fitted." — Quoted from Colonel 
Henry Watterson, in the Louisville Courier-Journal. Marse 
Henry said this, July 13, 1911. 

" We had a preliminary skirmish and the stranglehold was 
broken, and if ever I saw a happy, relieved, self-respecting body 
of gentlemen, it was those New Jersey legislators, freed of the 
stranglehold. We have got to break that stranglehold if we 
do it with sticks of dynamite." — Governor Wilson after the 
Smith-Martinc contest. 

If ever there was a leader desirous of interpreting the 
popular will, Woodrow Wilson is one of that brand of 
leaders. He believes in the good sense of the American 
people. He has read history and he remembers it. 

" What are the best reasons for optimism in our 
political life?" I asked him. 

85 



86 WOODROW WILSON 

" Why, the progress we are making," was his immediate 
reply. " One of the best indications is that society is 
looking itself over. The people are awake from East 
to West and North to South." 

In one of Governor Wilson's public addresses, he said : 

" I don't fear revolution. I don't fear it even if it 
comes. I have unshaken faith in the power of America 
to keep its self-possession. If revolution comes it will 
come in peaceful guise, as it came when we put aside the 
crude government of the confederation, and created the 
great Federal State, which governs individuals, and which 
has been these one hundred and thirty years our vehicle 
of progress. And revolution need not come. I don't 
believe for a minute that it will come. Some reconstruc- 
tions we must push forward, which a new age and new 
circumstances impose upon us, but we can do it all in 
calm and sober fashion like statesmen and patriots." 

And, it was " in calm and sober fashion," except when 
numerous sidesteppers attempted to violate their cam- 
paign pledges, that the 1911 session of the New Jersey 
Legislature did its work. Then these offenders were sum- 
moned to a conference with their preceptor, and shown 
the error of their ways. You see the preceptorial system 
can be used in a legislature as well as in a college. 
None of us outgrows the necessity for preceptors, even 
after we leave school. 

" It is a mistake for any one to think for a moment 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 87 

that I dragooned those men," the Governor said to me. 
" We worked together in a common cause." 

I This was what I had heard over and over again, from 

assemblymen and senators, and nearly all of them, whom 
I interviewed, volunteered the information that keeping 
the faith would not have been possible except for the 
direction and guidance of a wise leadership. Like Caesar, 
Woodrow Wilson personally encouraged every man to do 
his duty. He prodded every man to the limit of his energy. 
When mild methods did not produce the desired results, 
the Governor tried more effective means of discipline. 
When a sidestepper balked, Dr. Wilson applied the 
remedy. If a man is big enough to find it there is always 
a remedy for every weakness, in any situation which he 
may meet. I once knew a man who cured a balky horse, 
whose habit of balking had become second nature. He 
would even balk when it would have been easier to do 
his work willingly. One day the owner of the horse 
held a bottle of ammonia under the animal's nose. This 
was five years ago, and he has never balked since. 

One conference with our statesman-governor was 
enough to cure a balky assemblyman or senator. 

The Governor continued: 

" You don't want the legislature bossed by the gov- 
ernor; of course not; but it can be arranged to give its 



88 WOODROW WILSON 

members a chance to answer on the same platform with 
him. The great thing to be desired is debate; debate 
among authoritative persons as well as debate upon the 
Nluinp, and the more thorough-going, the more fearless 
this debate is, the better." 

This kind of talk was the only weapon which Governor 
Wilson held over the heads of some of the machine men 
at Trenton, when they insisted upon inserting jokers in 
bills, or framing elastic legislation which should osten- 
sibly meet campaign pledges by giving to the people the 
skeleton of reform, but without the muscles and red 
blood to support it. It was through " daylight," and 
fireworks-at-night methods that the people were kept 
informed concerning affairs at the State Capitol in 
1911. 

Not since George Washington spanked the Hessians 
has there been an historical event of such great importance 
as the reform accomplished under Governor Wilson's 
leadership. 

When Nature casts a hero to play a part, she is gen- 
erous enough to prepare him for it. She gives him many 
rehearsals in private, where he can play to an imaginary 
audience, and then after she puts him upon a public 
stage it is only necessary for him to go behind the scenes 
at intervals, to strengthen his part by further study of 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 89 

himself and other men. Rut, in the end, it is not the 
elegance of the hero's paraphernalia, or the charm of his 
manner, or the sound of his voice, or even the combina- 
tion of these, which decides what the measure of his 
influence shall be. It is his sincerity which takes hold 
and commends him to immortality! Earnest conviction 
and clear vision added to sincerity insure the only true 
greatness, and the truly great man always keeps faith 
with those whom he represents. 

Some one has said that a leader is one who is going 
in the same direction with the people, but a little bit 
ahead, which only means that a leader must see farther 
than the average citizen; that a leader must stimulate 
the average person to look ahead with him. This course 
of action has characterized Governor Wilson's political 
record. Note what he says of the average man: 

" You know that communities are not distinguished by 
exceptional men. They are distinguished by the aver- 
age of their citizenship. ... I often think of the poor 
man when he goes to vote: a moral unit, in his lonely 
dignity." 

" The deepest conviction and passion of my heart is 
that the common people, by which I mean all of us, are 
to be absolutely trusted. The peculiarity of some repre- 
sentatives, particularly of the Republican party, is that 
when they talk about the people, they obviously do not 
include themselves. Now if, when you think of the 



00 WOODROW WILSON 

people, you are not thinking about yourself, then you do 
not belong in America. 

" When I look back at the processes of history, when I 
look back at the genesis of America, I see this written 
over every page, that the nations are renewed from the 
bottom, not from the top; that the genius which springs 
np from the ranks of unknown men is the genius which 
renews the youth and energy of the people ; and in every 
age of the world, where you stop the courses of the blood 
from the roots, you injure the great, useful structure to 
the extent that atrophy, death, and decay are sure to 
ensue. That is the reason that an hereditary monarchy 
does not work; that is the reason that an hereditary 
aristocracy does not work, that is the reason that every- 
thing of that sort is full of corruption and ready to decay. 

" So I say that our challenge of to-day is to include in 
the partnership all those great bodies of unnamed men 
who are going to produce our future leaders and renew 
the future energies of America. And as I confess that, 
as I confess my belief in the common man, I know what 

1 am saying. The man who is swimming against the 
stream knows the strength of it. The man who is in 
the melee knows what blows are being struck and what 
blood is being drawn. The man who is on the make is 
a judge of what is happening in America, not the man 
who has made; not the man who has emerged from the 
flood, not the man who is standing on the bank looking 
on, but the man who is struggling for his life and for 
the lives of those who are dearer to him than himself. 
That is the man whose judgment will tell you what is 
going on in America, and that is the man by whose 
judgment I for one wish to be guided — so that as the 
tasks multiply and the days come when all will seem 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 91 

confusion and dismay, we may lift up our eyes to the 
hills out of these dark valleys where the crags of 
special privilege overshadow and darken our path, to 
where the sun gleams through the great passage in the 
broken cliffs, the sun of God, the sun meant to regenerate 
men, the sun meant to liberate them from their passion 
and despair and to lift us to those uplands which are the 
promised land of every man who desires liberty and 
achievement." 

The Governor appealed to all the citizens when he 
was a candidate for office, and he held himself responsible 
to the people who elected him. 

During the discussion of the Direct Primary Bill, now 
a law, some one said to him that if it were enacted it 
would, in the end, crush the machine which nominated him. 

" True," said the Governor, " the machine nominated 
me, but fortunately it was the people who elected me." 

The interest of the whole people is his constant study. 
This may be said to be the key-note of his political 
conscience. 

" Government should not exist for the advantage and 
protection of a part of the people, but for the whole 
people," Dr. Wilson often said during his campaign. 

This was a reminder of duty which the Governor gave 
in his inaugural message to the Legislature: 

" Our business is to adjust right to right, interest to 



92 WOODROW WILSON 

interest, and to systematize right and convenience; in- 
dividual rights and corporate privileges upon the single 
basis of the general good; the good of whole com- 
munities; the good which no one will look after or 
suffice to secure if the Legislature does not." 

When he was in training for the part he was to play, 
Dr. Wilson had said in an able article on " The States 
and the Federal Government," published in the North 
American Review in 1908: "There are many evidences 
that we are losing confidence in our State Legislatures, 
and yet it is evident that it is through them that we 
attempt all the more intimate measures of self-govern- 
ment. To lose faith in them is to lose faith in our very 
system of government, and that is a very serious matter." 
And again : " It is the privilege of independent local 
opinion and individual conviction which has given speed, 
facility, vigor, and certainty to the processes of our 
economic and political growth." 

Governor Wilson's idea, then and now, consisted in 
this: that the faults of State governments are not due 
to the constitutional divisions of power between the 
States and the Nation, but to the loss of contact between 
the people and their legislatures, which contact has been 
lost through private management and organized selfish- 
ness, representative of political managers, who serve their 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OYER 93 

own interests and the interest of those with whom they 
find it profitable to establish partnerships. 

There were two methods by which Governor Wilson 
proposed to restore contact between the people and the 
Legislature in New Jersey: one, by injecting publicity 
into legislative committees, heretofore labelled, " No ad- 
mittance " ; and the other, by turning the hose of public 
opinion on the Legislature through executive leadership. 
"Put up or shut up" (before quoted), and "Pitiless 
publicity " are the Governor's favorite slogans. 

There was nothing which gave the chief executive more 
pleasure during the last session of the Legislature than 
to sit for hours in conference with committees, framing 
legislation, or to meet the entire Assembly in the Supreme 
Court Chamber, where he persuaded them to pass the 
Direct Primary and Election bills. Here the Governor 
found his shorthand as useful as it used to be when he 
took notes in the class-room, or later when he served on 
faculty committees. Here he could use his gift of elo- 
quence as well as he did when lecturing before a class 
on Jurisprudence, or making a campaign speech. 

" Was it custom which kept you off the floor of the 
House and the Senate?" I inquired. 

" It was," and then the Governor made an explanation. 



94 WOODROW WILSON 

" The whole country, since it cannot decipher the methods 
of its legislation, is clamoring for leadership; and a new 
role, which to many persons seems little less than un- 
constitutional, is thrust upon our executives. The people 
are impatient of a President who will not formulate 
policy and insist upon its adoption. They are impatient 
of a governor who will not exercise energetic leader- 
ship; who will not make his appeals directly to public 
opinion and insist that the dictates of public opinion 
be carried out in definite legal reforms, of his own 
suggestion. 

" It is considered something more than a breach of 
propriety for an executive to venture to dictate to the 
legislative branch of the government, and yet this scruple 
is undoubtedly based upon an ignorance of our actual 
constitutional provisions. Almost every State constitu- 
tion not only gives the Governor what the Federal Con- 
stitution gives the President, the right to send messages 
to the legislature, expressing his views upon public mat- 
ters in any way he pleases, but also, like the Federal 
Constitution, gives him the right to recommend measures 
without naming or restricting the form in which his 
recommendation of measures shall be made. It seems 
perfectly clear that it is the explicit prerogative of prac- 
tically every American executive to recommend measures 
if he pleases in the form of bills. It is no presumption 
on bis part, therefore, and no invasion of the rights 
of any other branch of government, if he presses his 
views in any form that he pleases, upon the law-making 
body." 

Once when Governor Wilson was accused of exceeding 
his constitutional rights on account of the pressure which 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 95 

he brought to bear on the Legislature, he simply read to 
his accuser this section of the New Jersey constitution: 

" The Governor shall communicate by message to the 
Legislature at the opening of each session, ami at such 
other times as he may deem necessary, the condition of 
the State, and recommend such measures as he may deem 
expedient." 

And then the Governor said : " Inasmuch as it 
is next to impossible to determine who is running the 
legislature from the inside, there is an instinctive de- 
sire that there should be some force directing and 
leading it from the outside; some force which shall 
be obvious and therefore responsible, open to the view 
of everybody and subject only to the restraints of 
public opinion. Public opinion must by hook or crook 
get into the business. If it cannot get into it through 
committee-rooms, it may possibly get into it through 
executive leadership. If these things don't work the 
Initiative and Referendum will." 

" And that is exactly where some of your friends be- 
lieve that you are making a mistake in regard to the 
Initiative and Referendum," I interrupted. 

" No ODe proposes to substitute the Initiative and 
Referendum for our present methods of legislation, but 
everybody perceives that as legislation is now managed, 
public opinion cannot reach it. The Initiative and 
Referendum is a means of lodging in the people an in- 
strument of control, of which the legislators shall at all 
times be conscious. 

" My visit to Oregon and my observation at first hand 
of the direct legislation law there has not only convinced 
me of its success as a practical measure but also forced 



96 WOODROW WILSON 

upon me the conclusion that it is a conservative rather 
than a radical force. The preparation necessary to the 
proper operation of the law induces calm reflection." 

" Will this not be an efficient means of safeguarding 
the editing of bills by reducing the number of loop-hole 
measures, whose authors will fear the use of the Initiative 
or the outcome of the Referendum?" 

" I knew where a great many of the measures of the 
New Jersey Legislature originated until the last session. 
They were drawn up in the offices of certain corporation 
lawyers. That is where they were drawn up, almost in- 
variably, and these gentlemen objected to anybody else 
drawing them up. They objected to having an ordinary 
citizen, not connected with a big corporation, assume to 
suggest a bill. 

" Nearly all bills are privately edited. When I was 
in Portland, The Oregonian announced that there were 
two legislatures in the State: one at Salem, and the 
other under W. S. U'Ren's hat (the originator of the 
Oregon system). The implication was that it was most 
undesirable to have a legislature under Mr. U'ren's hat. 
After this I remarked in an address before the Portland 
Commercial Club, that I would prefer legislation drafted 
under W. S. U'Ren's hat, or under any honest man's or 
fearless leader's hat, to laws drafted under God knows 
whose hat." 

" Speaking of leaders, do you not believe that the life 
of every leader impregnates the entire body politic; that 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 07 

a leader's influence reaches each of us whether we are 
conscious of it or not?" 

" Oh, it does," said the Governor, and this time he 
spoke most intensely. His manner and voice reflected 
the deep sincerity that lies in him. 

I then realized that the Governor was fully conscious 
of his responsibilities ; that he would never venture where 
he did not believe himself to be prepared to serve the 
people's interests; that he would always keep the faith. 
The words of the lips may deceive, the glances of the 
eye, or the gestures of the hand, but the essence of 
character, Ihe silent influence we radiate can never 
deceive. 

" Don't you believe that the bad examples of some of 
their leaders have made many of the French people super- 
ficial, and led them to esteem the froth more than the 
substance of things?" I inquired. 

" The French have naturally an analytical strain. They 
are suspicious and they have reason to be, and so have 
we," and now the Governor spoke decidedly. 

I then told him a story of a high school boy who was 
asked this question : " If Thomas Carlyle were to write 
a Heroes and Hero Worship to-day, based on American 
political characters, what ones would he be most likely 



98 WOODROW "WILSON 

to choose? " The boy's answer was : " Benjamin Frank- 
lin, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham 
Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, Grover Cleveland, Theodore 
Roosevelt, and Woodrow Wilson." 

At this the Governor smiled modestly, and replied in 
a manner which indicated that the schoolboy's classifica- 
tion, so far as Woodrow Wilson was concerned, was only 
the result of youthful enthusiasm. (I believe that the 
youth will prove himself a prophet.) 

Will not a governor, who, from the very first, could 
discipline a New Jersey Legislature, and secure in one 
year more for the people of the State than had been 
secured in all the previous history of the commonwealth, 
deserve to be honored not only by the Hall of Fame, but 
to live in the memory of every true American, as long 
as the Republic shall stand? 

Notice, Woodrow Wilson, in every event of his career, 
has begun things right; observe carefully his first stroke 
in every new undertaking. There is no compromise, no 
bungling. He seems intuitively to know what is due the 
people. 

You see it had never been the custom of the old bi- 
partisan machine of New Jersey to concern itself about 
promises after election, but Governor Wilson took it upon 
himself to assist the citizens of the State to secure the 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 99 

legislation for which they had been vainly hoping for 
years. 

As the reform measures passed it was often remarked 
that some gentlemen who had previously dedicated their 
energies to the defeat of similar bills now expressed 
pleasure in voting for them, but there were reasons why. 
Governor Wilson's straightforward campaign had awak- 
ened the people, and he kept up their interest. The cam- 
paign before election was a tame affair compared with 
the recrudescence which followed. 

The New York Evening Post, in commenting upon the 
work of the New Jersey Legislature after the 1911 ses- 
sion, said: 

" Governor Wilson's tact and skill, his far-reaching 
knowledge of political conditions, and his undaunted 
courage, combined with a dogged insistence that the 
Legislature redeem its pledges; — these things have re- 
sulted in writing into law in a remarkably short space 
of time the pledges of the Democratic platform. The 
bosses have been routed; there has been no suggestion 
of graft or corruption ; no midnight orgies in low road- 
houses marked the wind-up of this session, and the legis- 
lation that has been enacted will attract attention all 
over the country because of its thorough-going character." 

The success of Governor Wilson in a machine-ridden 
State in inducing the Legislature to keep faith with the 



100 WOODROW WILSON 

people, will constitute one of the most interesting and 
inspiring chapters in the history of American politics. 
Is it not safe to predict that, if elected President, he 
will do for the nation as much as he has already done 
for his own State? 

That the general reader may have an acquaintance 
with the merits of the Wilson programme, the following 
chapter is devoted to a review of the most important 
laws enacted in 1911. 



CHAPTER VI 



REFORM LEGISLATION 



" I earnestly commend to your careful consideration the laws 
in recent years adopted in the State of Oregon, whose effect has 
been to bring government back to the people and to protect 
it from the control of the representatives of selfish and special 
interests. They seen to me to point the direction which we 
must also take before we have completed our regeneration of 
a government which has suffered so seriously and so long as 
ours has here in New Jersey, from private management and 
organized selfishness. 

" It is not the foolish ardor of too sanguine or too radical 
reform that I urge upon you, but merely the tasks that are 
evident and pressing; the things we have knowledge and guid- 
ance enough to do and to do with confidence and energy. I 
merely point out the present business of progressive and ser- 
viceable government, the next stage on the journey of duty. 
The path is as inviting as it is plain. Shall we hesitate to 
tread it? I look forward with genuine pleasure to the prospect 
of being your comrade upon it." — From Governor Wilson's 
Inaugural Address. 

Legislation in the general interests in New Jersey! 
The Oregon system! To bring government back to the 
people ! " Shall we hesitate to tread the plain path of 
duty? " and, " I am to be your comrade upon it! " 

Surely it required a long record of consistent deeds 
back of a governor who wrote such a message to insure 
his being taken seriously. A few years ago we would 



102 WOODROW WILSON 

almost have questioned the sanity of an incoming gov- 
ernor who would have dared to propose such innovations. 
And there was no misunderstanding that the new chief 
executive meant that the Legislature should get down to 
business at a Thomas-Edison rate of speed. 

After denouncing the State's laws in regard to the 
relations of employer and employee as inadequate and 
impossible, urging the passage of an adequate Public 
Utilities Bill, the necessity of extending and perfecting 
the Primary laws, the imperative need of ballot reform 
and honest election laws, the executive who came intro- 
duced as an untrained theorist, unacquainted with the 
game of politics casually remarked : " We have lagged 
behind our sister States in these important matters, and 
should make haste to avail ourselves of their example 
and their experience. Here again Oregon may be our 
guide. 

" This is a big programme, but it is a perfectly con- 
sistent programme, and a perfectly feasible programme, 
and one upon whose details it ought to be possible to 
agree even within the limits of a single legislative session." 

Whish ! Whack ! Bang ! Clear the track ! A " Twentieth- 
Century-Limited " programme for Trenton ! During his 
campaign the Governor had been talking about corpora- 
tions taking joy rides, and evidently he had made up his 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OYER 103 

mind that to overtake some of these joy riders it is often 
necessary to take a joy ride ourselves. 

But Trenton is a little slow. It only supports one 
taxicab, No. 1122 N. J., and the first thing which one 
sees in a journey from the Pennsylvania Depot to the 
Capitol is a cemetery. Naturally, a six-cylinder ninetj- 
horse-power type of governor was bound to attract some 
attention when he arrived. That the effect was local 
as well as State and nation-wide is proven by the adop- 
tion in Trenton of the Commission form of government, 
earnestly recommended by Governor Wilson. 

But to get back to his reforms and the qualities of 
his statesmanship which secured them. " I am accused 
of being a radical. If to seek to go to the root of things 
is a radical, a radical I am." And again, " Do you wan! 
to stand pat? Do you want to stand still? Do you 
want all the things that have been safeguarded against? 
Or do you want to do what is so characteristic of the 
American people, to turn bravely about?" 

Governor Wilson is glad that he is not a standpatter, 
lie says so. He wants twentieth-century tools for 
twentieth-century workmanship. 

The crude institutions of party conventions; the em- 
ployee's burden of fighting powerful, composite employers ; 
corrupt practices in elections; and "toothless" public 



104 WOODROW WILSON 

utilities commissions, belong to an age of cave-dwellers 
in whose habitations we may find to-day the same tools 
which we would now be using if all of our ancestors had 
been standpatters. 

The eradication of inefficient laws and the substitution 
of up-to-date reforms were the chief features of the 
Wilson programme, which gave to our State national 
prominence, in the role of progressiveness. And the re- 
form legislation was all accomplished in spite of the 
pressure brought to bear by the bi-partisan machines and 
their formidable lobbyists. It must be remembered that 
while the Assembly was Democratic, it contained many 
" trimmers," and the State Senate was Republican by 
three majority. " With cannon to right of them and 
cannon to left of them," the Governor, the Senate minor- 
ity leader, Harry V. Osborne, and the people's men in 
the Assembly, had a continual fight on their hands. But 
the Governor was the pilot, who saved " The Ship of 
State " from wreckage. 

Mr. Osborne edited a Public Utilities Bill. This meas- 
ure has been declared by many of the ablest lawyers in 
the United States to be the most stringent in the 
Union. " It has," as the Governor says, " teeth in it." 
It gives the Public Utilities Board, appointed by the 
Governor, the power to investigate upon its own motion, 






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AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 105 

or upon complaint of any one in writing, any public 
utility; grants the Board authority to fix rates, to enter 
the premises of any public utility, to test appliances, to 
exact safe, adequate, and proper service, to require a 
system of accounts and annual reports kept in such form 
as the Board may prescribe; to determine whether in- 
creases of rates are reasonable, and to suspend the same 
where unjust, with the burden of proof to show that 
the increases are reasonable to lie wholly upon the 
public untilities corporation making the same. No pub- 
lic utility can make any unjust discrimination or prefer- 
ential rate, extend its indebtedness, or issue stocks or 
bonds payable in more than one year from date, without 
the consent of the Board; nor can it sell, lease, or mort- 
gage, dispose of or encumber its property, without the 
approval of the Board ; nor transfer its stock to other 
companies. The Board may order and direct proper pro- 
tection at grade crossings. It may refuse to make valid 
privileges or franchises granted to any public utility by 
any political subdivision of the State, where such privi- 
leges are not in the State's interest. The Board makes 
its own rules for hearings, may compel the attendance of 
witnesses and the production of records, may exact any 
testimony, even though it incriminate witnesses. 

Failure to comply with any order of the Public Utilities 



106 WOODBOW WILSON 

Board makes the offenders subject to a fine of $100 per 
day; and observance of the orders of the Board may be 
enforced by mandamus or injunction, or by suit in equity. 
The misdemeanor clause of the law is as strong as an 
eight-ply Manila rope, and when the bill was in progress, 
the corporations kept a vigilance committee installed 
night and day in Trenton, seeking the elimination of 
this feature, in particular; but for once their efforts 
were in vain. 

Under the law, any person or public utility corpora- 
tion which shall perform or assist in performing any act 
prohibited by the law, or any public utilities corpora- 
tion which shall fail or neglect to perform its duties, as 
required by the act, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor. 

If any provision of the law is finally declared uncon- 
stitutional, no other provision is to be affected by the 
Court's decision. 

Although the present law has only been in force since 
May 1, 1911, several reprehensible evils of public ser- 
vice corporations have been corrected, and indications 
are that the interests of the people, as well as those 
of the corporations, will ultimately be conserved and 
insured. 

Here are some of the most important things which 
the Commission has done. A ruling has already been 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 107 

made which extends the street-car transfer privileges in 
Newark, where 350,000 people are benefited. The Adams 
Express Company has been compelled to extend its de- 
livery service free to the Hill Crest section of Trenton, 
where it had formerly extorted excessive charges from 
the residents of that locality. The Consolidated Gas 
Company has been required to reduce its rates for gas 
and electricity in sixteen communities. In Newark the 
Public Service Railway Company attempted to abolish 
school children's commutation tickets. The Public Util- 
ities Board ordered these tickets restored and the Public 
Service Company secured a court review, by certiorari, 
with the result that the Supreme Court sustained the action 
of the Board. The tickets are again in force. New Jersey 
commuters appealed to the Commission to secure a reduc- 
tion of railroad rates between Jersey points and New 
York. Since this was a matter coming under the juris- 
diction of the Interstate Commerce Commission, our 
State Commission urged the claims of the commuters 
before that body, with the result that a reduction of 
rate schedules was ordered. 

Heretofore, the railroads have refused to sell commu- 
tation and special-rate tickets from places within the 
State to Jersey City and Hoboken. They have only 
recognized New York as a terminal point. Our Utilities 



108 WOODROW WILSON 

Board has ordered that tickets must be sold to those 
commuters thus discriminated against. 

The Commission has made an order that corporations 
which receive certificates of approval for issuing securi- 
ties must make half-year reports of the amount of stock 
or securities issued, sold, and delivered, and the extent 
to and the purposes for which the proceeds have been 
disbursed. This is, of course, to prevent stock-watering. 
A rule has been established which makes it mandatory 
that corporations operating under limited franchises shall 
continue to give safe and adequate service after the ex- 
piration of the terms of the franchises. Before ratifying 
a franchise the Commission may impose conditions which 
shall insure the permanent efficiency of a corporation's 
service. 

The Board has forced a telephone company to give 
adequate service upon demand. It has ordered better 
protection at grade crossings, and has refused to approve 
the building of new grade crossings, where public safety 
threatened to be endangered. It has compelled the build- 
ing of elevators in a large tunnel-station. It has ordered 
a reduction of Pullman rates to seashore points. It has 
required a railroad company to restore a bridge illegally 
removed. It has enforced rules for safeguarding traffic 
on railroads and trolley lines. 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 109 

In the interest of the corporations, and in justice to 
them, it has refused in one case to approve a franchise 
of an independent gas company, where competition would 
have been wasteful and expensive. It has refused to 
order the Pennsylvania Railroad to build a station, at 
a place on its New York tunnel line, where such a 
building would have meant great expense to the company, 
and serious interference with its through passenger traffic. 

More discipline of the corporations is on the way as 
soon as the Board can complete its data, where investiga- 
tions are being conducted. 

The Employers' Liability Laws of New Jersey were 
obsolete relics of past years handed down from a time 
when machinery was unknown. Our present law places 
the responsibility of looking after the injured on the 
employer, thus properly charging the expense against the 
cost of production, the same as any other expense, instead 
of having the injured depend on charity. In the last 
analysis the consumer will and should bear such burdens. 
The new law makes provision for the equitable distribu- 
tion of the money which heretofore has been wasted in 
litigation. 

It may be operated under one of two sections. The 
first provides that the amount of liability for accidents 
shall be determined by suit in court, if the employer or 



110 WOODROW WILSON 

employee shall so elect. But in case of suit, the old 
" fellow-servant " and " contributory negligence " clauses 
are eliminated. The second section provides for definite 
compensation for all injuries sustained by employees in 
course of their employment. 

Recognizing that workmen's compensation means in- 
dustrial peace and employers' liability industrial war, 
the Public Service and some other large corporations 
have already made preparations for operating under the 
second section of the law, with the cheerful consent of 
those in their employ. 

Our former Direct Primary Law only provided for 
the nomination of municipal officers, assemblymen and 
senators, by the people. Now it has been extended to 
every elective office, including the governor, congress- 
men, members of the county and state committees, and 
delegates to the national conventions. 

The State conventions of both parties are held at the 
same time, one week after the primaries. Instead of 
being composed of delegates, selected by no one knows 
whom, they are made up simply of the candidates named 
in the primaries. Those nominated for senators and 
assemblymen, with the hold-over senators of each party 
constitute the members of each convention. The gov- 
ernor is a member of the convention of his own party. 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 111 

By this plan the number of delegates in each of our 
slate conventions is cut down from nearly one thousand 
to less than eighty. 

Presidential Preference primaries are provided. New 
Jersey was the first Eastern State to adopt this kind of 
primary. 

Candidates for the Legislature must file with the County 
Clerk one of two statements: either that the candidate 
will vote for that nominee for the United States Senate 
who receives the highest number of votes in the candi- 
date's party in the primary preceding the election of a 
United States Senator; or that he shall consider the 
vote of the people for United States Senator as a recom- 
mendation, which as a member of the Legislature he may 
disregard, if he sees sufficient reason for so doing. 

Personal registration is required in municipalities con- 
taining more than five thousand people. No one is al- 
lowed to vote at the primary until he registers for the 
general election. Eegistration involves the answering 
of a series of questions by the voter regarding his iden- 
tity. Voters who can write must sign their statements. 
If a voter cannot write he must make a further identifica- 
tion statement in lieu of his signature. The sample 
primary ballots are mailed to each voter, but these bal- 
lots cannot be voted. Ballots to be voted at the primaries 



112 WOODROW WILSON 

are given to the citizens at the primary polling places 
on primary day by the election officers. None of these 
ballots is allowed outside the polling places. 

The same process is used in regard to the distribution 
of ballots before and at the general election. On elec- 
tion day the voter must sign his name on the poll-book 
that it may be compared with the signature on the 
registration book. He must sign before he receives a 
ballot. Illiterate voters, who cannot write, must here 
make answers to questions concerning their identity and 
the answers are compared with those which were made 
when they registered. 

At the primaries there are separate ballots for each 
party. At the general election the single or blanket 
ballot is used. Party emblems are abolished. The voter 
votes for individual candidates whose names appear iu 
alphabetic order, with the party to which each belongs 
indicated by its name, at the right. He must vote a 
ballot, not a ticket. 

The new Election Law is strongly reinforced by the 
Corrupt Practices Act. All committees designated by 
candidates to carry on their campaigns are required to 
file itemized statements showing every receipt and ex- 
penditure, and each candidate must file a sworn state- 
ment of his personal contributions. There is also a limit 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 113 

to the amount which candidates may spend, in seeking 
nomination and election. This varies according to the 
salary paid by the office. Any candidate who fails to 
comply with this feature of the law must forfeit the 
office to which he shall be elected. 

All campaign literature must bear the inscription of 
the writer's name. No money may be spent for trans- 
porting voters to the polls, unless they are physically 
unable to go, in which case the expense is paid by the 
county. 

There are various specific acts designated which con- 
stitute violations of the law. Candidates are protected 
from solicitations of private individuals for churches, 
clubs, charitable institutions, and other organizations. 
Corporation contributions in any form are positively for- 
bidden. Pay envelopes must not bear political inscrip- 
tions. No political hand-bills containing threats or 
coercive statements can be posted in factories under 
penalty of forfeiture of the charters possessed by the 
corporations guilty of such misdemeanor. Any person 
violating this provision is also guilty of a misdemeanor. 

The secrecy of the ballot is strongly safeguarded. The 
records of corruption in the conduct of elections in this 
State in previous years have been most disgraceful and 
extraordinary. Accordingly, the new law makes fraud- 



114 WOODROW WILSON 

ulent voting and ballot-box stuffing practically impossible. 
The destruction of records in the recent Atlantic County 
election frauds, where Judge Samuel Kalisch, appointed 
by Governor Wilson, the first Hebrew, in the State, 
ever elevated to the Supreme Court Bench, so ad- 
mirably applied the law to the offenders, led to most 
stringent legislation for the punishment of such notori- 
ous lawbreakers in future. Altogether, with these 
measures of protection we are pretty well intrenched 
against repeaters and election crooks of all classes. Al- j 
ready it has been discovered in carrying over the primary 
registry lists from 1910 that thousands of voters, who 
resided on vacant lots at that time, have moved away, 
evidently because they did not like the new election 
laws; or possibly because New Jersey winters are get- 
ting colder. Wagon-loads of sample ballots mailed to 
" spook " voters have been returned to the post-offices. 
" One thing is sure," as the governor says, " only flesh- 
and-blood men will vote in this State, in future." 

Another step forward in progressive legislation was 
taken by the enactment of a statute which gives cities 
and municipalities of the State the privilege of adopting 
the commission form of government, under what was 
known originally as the " Galveston Plan," which provides 
for the complete abandonment of nomination of candidates 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OYER 115 

for office by political parties, the abolition of ward bound- 
ary lines, the merging of the legislative and the executive 
functions in' a commission, the right of the recall of 
elective officers, and the initiative and referendum. 

Add to this list of reforms the regulation of cold- 
storage, the substitution of indeterminate sentences for 
criminal offences, the rectification of abuses in connec- 
tion with false weights and measures, the reorganization 
of the State's school system, the abolition of contract 
labor in our penal institutions, the legislation in the 
interest of the blind, the regulation of the age, employ- 
ment, safety, health, and work-hours of persons employed 
in mercantile establishments, an act for the safeguard- 
ing of business buildings against fire; a law compelling 
all railroad corporations to pay their employees twice 
; monthly, and a law extending the civil service to em- 
ployees of the State, counties, and municipalities, and we 
have one of the most remarkable records of legislation 
that has ever distinguished a single legislative session 
in this country. 

Was not New Jersey really the first of the three East- 
ern States " to get out of the hole "? Did not J. Lincoln 
Steffens's prophecy come true? 



CHAPTER VII 

ELEVATION OF THE TONE OF PUBLIC OFFICE 

" No Democrat of modern times has come into the running, 
Samuel J. Tilden alone expected, with half at once of the equip- 
ment and the claim of the eminent Governor of New Jersey. 
He may be fairly described as the intellectual, not to say the 
moral, light of the Democracy of the new day, which is dawn- 
ing upon us. It was Tilden, another Wallenstein, who assembled 
the broken forces into the desolate camps of Democracy, after 
the ruinous campaign of 1872. If we are to have a recrudes- 
cence and not a mere revival, it will come at the hands of 
Woodrow Wilson. It will not be possible at the hands of some 
nondescript crossing the dead line of the two thirds rule at 
the end of self-seeking dicker and barter. These have far too 
often discredited the national conventions of both our parties. 
Let us hope they will not cheat Democracy in 1912 of an actual 
leader and a great victory." — Quoted from Colonel Henry 
Watterson, in the Louisville Courier Journal, October 3, 1911. 
This is what the Colonel thought before the now famous Harvey- 
Wilson-Watterson rumpus. 

" You will never elevate the tone of public office until the 
people evince more interest in the tone of their public officers." 
— Harry V. Osborne. 

How are we going to elevate the tone of public office 
to correspond with the increasing dignity and power of 
the State and the Nation? A question which has puzzled 
and perplexed us for some time, and to which there can 
be but one answer. We must exercise greater care in 
the choice of public officials. We must seek executives 

_ n6 



NEW JERSEY MADE OYER 117 

gifted not only with a capacity for leadership, but who 
have an immaculate conception of duty and public trust. 
Obviously, if we can induce such men to become political 
leaders, our legislators will give us better service because 
of the stimulus which the executive gives to them through 
intimate contact. And this does not mean the influence 
of a dominating personality, as some would make us 
believe. It means that executives may establish stand- 
ards in public life which shall call forth the very best 
energies of officials. 

Do you know, after all, what is the greatest service 
which Governor Wilson has rendered to the people of 
New Jersey? Let us see. He met the professional time- 
worn politicians of the State on much higher ground 
than they anticipated, and many of them were gradually, 
almost unconsciously, elevated to the Governor's world of 
idealism, the principles of which he has proven may be 
applied to practical affairs. The secret of his leadership 
does not lie in his ability to bring men under the control 
of his irresistible influence, but rather in the purity of 
his moral vision, and he seems utterly unconscious of the 
fact that his purposes and ideals are in such decided 
contrast with the seasoned timbers in politics. 

If we may venture an opinion thus early, we believe 
that when historians pass their final judgment upon 



118 WOODROW WILSON 

Woodrow Wilson they will say : Here was a man whose 
invigorating statesmanship took such a hold of the gen- 
eration in which he lived that that generation was re- 
vivified; liberty asseverated; representative government 
restored; men made free; and public officials reinspired 
with a new consciousness of responsibility. 

Mr. Wilson bears the distinction of being the first 
governor to insist that it is the duty of the State 
executive to keep the constituents of State legislators 
informed as to the official conduct of their representa- 
tives. His action is entirely consistent, for he told the 
people, over and over again, when he was a candidate 
for office, that he would, if elected, return to them with 
a full account of his stewardship; and that at the same 
time he would report to them concerning the records of 
the members of the Legislature. 

" A schoolmaster for governor " was a jest in his cam- 
paign. Dr. Wilson took this good-naturedly, and said, 
" Yes, and a schoolmaster is one who is trained to find 
out all that he can and then tell it as plainly as he can," 
and ever since his election to office, he has been " finding 
out things " and " telling things." 

" This is not a campaign meeting. It is a conference 
of fellow-citizens," the Governor said, when he came back 
to the people to fulfil his promises to instruct them 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 119 



concerning what happened at Trenton last winter. In 
these conferences he aimed " to reconnect our system of 
government where necessary with the real movement of 
public opinion." 

What we needed for a long time in New Jersey was 
an executive who would wake us up with an alarm-clock ; 
not the kind that makes a little noise like a toy whistle 
and lets you go back to sleep again, but one that sounds 
like a fire alarm. Before Woodrow Wilson arrived on 
the scene our governors had been of the cuckoo-clock 
type: soothing to the nerves, and not at all inclined to 
disturb our slumbers. 

Of course in a State where for so long we had used 
only tallow candles with which to inspect public affairs, 
naturally when incandescent lights were turned on some 
people objected and exclaimed : " W T hat manner of man 
is this who comes to us with new customs and devices, 
of which we know not? What is to become of represen- 
tative government if we take such strides towards 
democracy? " 

The Governor answered: 

" We are told now that all of the new programmes are 
assaults upon representative government, and we have 
heard recently some very eloquent tributes to represen- 
tative government. I am entirely willing to join in 



120 WOODROW WILSON 

those tributes, provided we can get it, but recently we 
have not had it, and therefore I am just about as much 
interested in eulogies on representative government in 
the United States, as I would be in eulogies on the 
enjoyable life in the planet of Mars. 

" It is very beautiful in theory, but does it work? Are 
the interests that you have been living under in New 
Jersey, the institutions that you had prior to last winter, 
were they representative of you? Did you get the things 
that you voted for? Were the promises of the platforms 
fulfilled for you? You know what happened." 

From this it will be seen that Governor Wilson is deeply 
aroused by the failure of representative government to 
represent. Some have said that perhaps he assumes too 
much responsibility in his desire to make over represen- 
tative institutions. 

But evidently the creators of our constitutions in- 
tended that the executive should make it his business 
to discover the needs of the people, minister to them, 
and assume the chief burden of responsibility. Those 
who look upon executive interference as an unauthorized 
departure from established precedents, have apparently 
misread both the State and the Federal constitutions. Is 
it not possible that we are learning to make better use 
of the privileges already conferred by the Constitution, 
and that according to the most natural laws of progress 
we are becoming more constitutional instead of less so, 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 121 

as some alarmists fear? Certainly tlic object of those 
who constructed our constitutions was to give us free 
government, and it was left to the generations after to 
develop the best processes of applying the principles of 
the Constitution so as to insure the highest degree of 
freedom consistent with the interests of each decade. 

We may prudently take pattern in some things from 
a nation which existed long before us, and w r hich was 
our first teacher. At the Governors' Conference at Spring 
Lake, New Jersey, Governor Wilson in referring to the 
leadership of executives, said : 

" One of the most interesting governments in the w T orld 
and a government that is the most free government, except 
our own, is based upon this very principle. The exec- 
utive of Great Britain undertakes to formulate prac- 
tically all of the legislation of the Kingdom. When the 
Legislature refuses to follow it, Parliament is dissolved, 
the executive goes to the people and says, * W T ill you 
send us men who will follow us, or w r ill you not?' The 
consequence is that Great Britain is the strongest gov- 
ernment in the world. Not only that; it is the most 
direct democracy in the world." 

This suggests the advantage of giving to our executives 
the support wiiich they need. And if we are to trust 
them to exercise a broader influence, we shall have to 
take on more responsibility ourselves, and seek dili- 
gently for able men. 



122 WOODROW WILSON 

" Certainly it is a fearful business, that of having your 
able man to seek and not knowing in what manner to 
proceed about it. That is the world's sad predicament," 
exclaimed Carlyle. 

But as our familiarity with public affairs increases, 
we shall not find it so difficult to discover our able men. 
We shall learn to think in the terms of our wisest leaders, 
even though we cannot keep step with them. 

But in our desire to be loyal to our executives we must, 
not lose sight of our obligations to our legislators. Gov- 
ernor Wilson has pointed out the dangers of placing our 
lawmakers under temptation. 

" You know, very much to our discredit, that we pay 
members of the Legislature in New Jersey only $500 a 
year. No man for $500 a year, without some indepen- 
dent means, can afford to represent you. And to pay 
them but $500 a year is to put them under direct tempta- 
tion. I don't mean temptation to take money, but a 
temptation to be acquiescent on the side where business 
interests are involved. Now some members of the Legis- 
lature are employees of large business concerns. These 
business concerns put the screws on those men whenever 
there is any danger of any pending legislation being 
against their interests. 

"I remember a member of the New Jersey Legislature 
who was honest and who desired to do the right thing. 
He had a small business. The long session of the Legis- 
lature drew so heavily upon his business that it Ian- 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 123 

guished and when the session neared its end he was near 
bankruptcy. This man had notes in the bank and we 
found that certain interests were forcing payment and 
would not let up unless he voted for a certain man 
for United States Senator. Had i1 not been for tlie 
' indiscreet ' acts of men like myself, that man would 
have become a bankrupt or have voted for Ihe big 
interests. Happily we made it public and he was cared 
for. 

"The representatives of big business had said to this 
man, i Don't you see that our direct interest is in the 
present schedules of the tariff? Don't you see that it is 
imperative that we should have the right man to represen t 
us in the United States Senate, to see that the tariff 
is not too freely tampered with? Do you expect us to 
retain you in our service or to pay you the same salary 
if you act contrary to our interests, as if you act in 
accordance with our interests?'" 

Of course bribery is the crudest form of political 
knavery. It is not the weapon most commonly used to 
insure the servility of legislators. Refusal of credit, 
efforts to ruin a man's business, through rumors both 
slanderous and libellous, and threats to check the careers 
of young men in politics, are the chief means by which 
political bosses seek to coerce free men. 

In spite of the pressure which big business brings to 
bear on politics, the situation does not admit of a general 
indictment of even the majority of public officials in the 
past. And it certainly is only just to say that a large 



124 WOODROW WILSON 

number of the present incumbents of office measure up 
to their responsibilities. Some are in the process of awak- 
ening. A few are still numbered among those who 
" stand pat," because they honestly believe it is best for 
all, and still fewer are knowingly following the constel- 
lation of selfish interests, that they may gain a cluster of 
stars with which to adorn their crowns in this world, 
since they are quite confident that they will have to do 
without either stars or crowns in the next. 

It seems to be a natural law that the people can 
rise no higher than the fountain source of a body 
politic will permit. Fortunately in republics we can 
alter both the fountain source and the main current in 
political life. The difficulty lies in that it is not always 
possible to choose the right fountain source, or to place 
in power the main current which will carry out the 
people's will. 

Some main currents consume so much of the energies 
and substance of their branches that there is a flood, 
characterized in practical politics as an overflow of com- 
mercial prosperity, but which upon examination proves 
to be only a superfluous concentration of power and privi- 
lege, to which the masses have contributed their best 
energies, to be consumed by a few who flatter themselves 
that they have created marvellous opportunities for the 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 125 

many; and that the latter should be honored by the 
privilege of serving their bountiful benefactors. Still 
other main currents take from their tributaries a legiti- 
mate force with which to propel their motions, but they 
give back to their feeders, through other channels, any 
surplus nutriment instead of consuming it in needless 
surfeit and waste. But no political current can dis- 
charge its functions with efficiency, unless the fountain 
source stimulates it with force and energy. 

And in New Jersey we needed all the stimulation that 
we have yet received, and " For that which we are about 
to receive make us truly thankful." We have not by 
any means reached a political millennium in this State, 
but there are hopes that we shall, at least, reach salva- 
tion. We have cleaned up some of the underbrush and 
removed part of the quagmire underlying our political 
life. The writer heard an old-time standpatter ex- 
aggerate the situation by saying: " What does this re- 
form mean? We cannot even hand one of our friends a 
match with which to light his cigar at election time 
without danger of being arrested for bribery." 

The reader may by this time have a suspicion that this 
chapter is a sequel to a few discoveries that were made 
by the author while collecting material for this story, and 
that the reader may not suspect me of leaving more in 



126 WOODROW WILSON 

the ink-pot than I have told about New Jersey politics 
and politicians, here are some facts which helped to 
elucidate my remarks on elevating the tone of public 
office. 

An ex-Governor told me of a State official, high in 
rank, who on the day before his retirement from office 
supplied himself with fifty dollars' worth of postage 
stamps, charged to the State. When his successor 
arrived there was not a postage stamp to be found, which 
is only an illustration that proves that all petty thieves 
are not arraigned in Police Court. 

At another time, some years ago, when capital of 
sixty thousand dollars had been provided for suppress- 
ing a piece of legislation in the people's interest, it 
happened that the corporations which furnished the 
money were afraid to trust the legislators, and that 
in turn the members of the Legislature were afraid to 
trust the corporations. It was the old story of " the 
pot calling the kettle black," but finally a lobbyist was 
found in whom both sides had confidence. Accordingly 
he held the stakes. " But the best-laid plans of mice 
and men," you know, and this time the Fates intercepted 
men's plans most unkindly. The lobbyist dropped dead; 
the sixty thousand dollars became a part of his estate; 
and his widow now enjoys the income from it. 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 127 

Such disclosures help us to realize that frequently the 
wires have been cut between the people and their officials. 
Some legitimate wire-tapping can be done to advantage; 
and a few underground cables will help to establish 
direct communication between the American people and 
their representatives. 

But, in the end, the statesman, not the muck-raker, 

lifts us out of the rut. The latter gives his mite; the 

former touches the body politic at every point. The 

statesman of the day furnishes steam and a derrick so 

strong that it will raise dead weights. He has arrived. 1 

1 Probably the Short-Ballot will prove to be one of the most 
effective agencies for increasing the efficiency of public officers. 
This form of ballot can only be secured through granting to 
Executives the authority to appoint more officers ; and by making 
more appointive offices subject to the Civil Service. 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE REACTION ON THE BODY POLITIC 

" Fools stare and wise men see." — Edwin Bjorkman. 

" Who can touch politics and keep his hands clean? Woodrow 
Wilson." — Rabbi Wise. 

Scenes of rousing cheers! Crowded halls! Argus- 
eyed audiences! Hopeful faces! Banks of palms and 
flowers! Groups of newspaper correspondents! And in 
the centre of a platform on which are seated many think- 
ing men, stands the Governor of New Jersey. Thou- 
sands of listeners are eager for his message. Where? 
In Oregon. In Washington. In Colorado. In Cali- 
fornia. In Kentucky. In New Mexico. In Texas. In 
Wisconsin. In Michigan. In Pennsylvania. In Mary- 
land. In Virginia. In New York. In New England. 
In every place which he has visited. 

The Nation has spoken to New Jersey where the Demo- 
cratic party is rent asunder by the wrath and fury of 
a boss whose power has been crushed by a fearless gov- 
ernor. The voice of the people has said: Truly a good 

128 



NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 129 

thing has come out of the land of mosquitoes and Naza- 
■ renes! The Nation is big enough to welcome a master 
statesman no matter where he may hail from. 

It is becoming more evident every day that the political 
machines do not want Woodrow Wilson for President, 
but the independent voters do. Why did the New Jersey 
Assembly swing back? Because there was a fusion of 
the bi-partisan ("buy-partisan") machine forces of the 
State, which seek to check the political fortunes of 
Governor Wilson, and because the political machines are 
on the job doing business at the old stand every day in 
the year, and the people are not. Then there are still 
those among us who sing, " As it was in the beginning, 
is now, and ever shall be," but there are also those who 
sing, " As it was in the beginning, and is now, but, 
I ' by gum/ it has got to stop." And the Governor of 
New Jersey sings the latter song with as much zest now 
as he did before our last State election. 

Every one must have known what would happen. 
There was Essex, normally a Republican stronghold and 
the home " of that profane herd of those vulgar and 
mechanical politicians who have no place among us"; 
those lonely and isolated gentlemen who before Woodrow 
Wilson's time were known as the sunniest of Sunnv 
Jims; whose smiles cast such a radiance over the com- 

9 



130 WOODROW WILSON 

munity that for many years we dispensed with all other 
light. Humiliated by their disappointment in not being 
able to control Governor Wilson and the last Legislature, 
only one course of action was open to. them. Revenge, 
sweet, delicious revenge! Revenge at any price! Split 
the Democratic party! Mark Wilson and his colleagues 
for slaughter ! were the orders which were repeated from 
lip to lip in the camps of the bosses. And it worked. 
A trade was made. The influence wielded by the Smith- 
Nugent gang lent itself to the Republican machine. The 
Democratic Essex organization worked for the election 
of Republican members to the Legislature in exchange 
for Republican votes for a machine Democrat for the high 
and mighty office of sheriff. Twelve Republican assem- 
blymen and a Republican senator from Essex were 
elected. This was the pivotal county of the State, and 
if it had gone Democratic, the Legislature would have 
been saved for Democracy. It was the only county in 
the State where the Governor did not speak during the 
campaign. Why? Because the Democrats presented a 
machine ticket, including nominees who had broken faith 
with the people during the 1911 session of the Legisla- 
ture. There was only one Essex Democrat named whom 
the Governor could conscientiously support. This was 
Senator Harry V. Osborne, who had a record for pro- 




- X ~ - 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OYER 131 

gressive legislation " clear as crystal." Governor Wilson 
issued a public letter in Mr. Osborne's behalf, but the 
machines combined and knifed him in the organization 
districts. In spite of this he ran way ahead of his ticket. 

In delivering the Legislature to the Republicans the 
Smith-Nugent machine now has, ostensibly, no represen- 
tative in that body. Had Governor Wilson been willing 
to sacrifice principles for party solidarity he might have 
secured a Democratic Legislature. 

But, you say, would it not have been possible for the 
Democrats of New Jersey to have carried the Legislature 
without Essex? Hardly. The State under normal con- 
ditions has been Republican. Both party machines are 
anti-Wilson and they did their fighting in the dark, while 
the. Governor fought in the open. The Smith machine 
maintains an organization in every county in the State. 
Every candidate who supported Governor Wilson, or who 
was backed by the Governor's friends, was bitterly op- 
posed by Smith's machine. The progressive elements 
of the two chief parties have not yet come together in 
the open and galvanized their resources into life. A 
well-organized minority easily overcomes a scattered 
majority, and it generally follows everywhere that a 
period of radical legislation results in the temporary re- 
turn of the former minority party to power. As it is, the 



132 WOODROW WILSON 

New Jersey Assembly now has thirty-seven Republicans 
and twenty-three Democrats, while the Senate stands 
eleven Republicans and ten Democrats. Outside Essex the 
Democrats gained one senator and a few assemblymen. 
There was no candidate for a State office running this 
year. Popular sentiment is easily determined by com- 
piling the votes cast for the candidates for the Assembly, 
who run in each county every year. The final returns 
on file in the office of the Secretary of State show that 
New Jersey went Democratic in 1911 by a plurality of 
3100. 

Governor Wilson's enemies began to plan a political 
post-mortem for him as soon as the returns of the last 
election came in, but indications are that he will prove 
himself the liveliest corpse which the political machines 
will encounter. The men who have been faking under 
cover of the Democratic party for years ought not to 
be able in the last analysis to handicap a man who leaves 
it entirely to the people to decide whether he is to be 
their choice for the highest office which the nation can 
bestow. If Wilson wins it will be because the people 
want him and because the machines do not. 

Governor Wilson has injected new life into the dry 
bones of politics. The machines cannot undo the work 
already accomplished by him, nor deprive him of the 






AND NEW JERSEY MADE OYER 133 

glory of his past achievements. He stands on the hori- 
zon of political life " like Mars at perihelion." 

Whether the Legislature is Republican or Democratic 
the question always before him is, " How are we to re- 
sume popular government?" 

Because Woodrow Wilson is Governor of New Jersey 
the pledges made in both party platforms this year were 
distinctly progressive, and there is an executive in Tren- 
ton who has a back-bone instead of a wish-bone, — a back- 
bone like a circus-pole, and who will insist that promises 
to the people must be kept. The partisan complexion 
of the Legislature is of far less importance to him than 
its being composed of men who are willing to co-operate 
with him in securing " reforms planned in the interest 
i of the whole State," which, to use his own phrase, " We 
are all sworn to serve." The members of the Legisla- 
ture of New Jersey, in future, will be obligated more 
than ever before to carry out their platform pledges, 
because every member of the majority party in the 
Legislature is a member of the State convention of his 
party when the platform is adopted. He takes part in 
the discussions and deliberations of the convention and 
helps to form its decisions on every feature it contains. 
Thus an unheard of precedent is established. 

Volumes might be written on the invigorating local 



134 WOODROW WILSON 

reaction of Governor Wilson's political influence. It was 
paid that " Alexander Hamilton touched the corpse of 
public credit and it sprang upon its feet." Woodrow 
Wilson touched the ghost of representative government, 
and it promises to materialize as a living force destined 
to insure the permanency of our Republic. 

Let us not be unmindful of the warnings of a states- 
man who is disturbed by the dangers and pitfalls incident 
to an era, when, in numerous instances, representative 
government has failed to represent. We are still a young 
nation, and it behooves us to remember history. Repub- 
lics and democracies have flourished, then declined, 
become oligarchies, and perished from the earth. 

We quote editorially from the Newark Evening News: 

" Give it time and with political machinery as it now 
is the oligarchy knows that it will be able to pervert 
our utility commissions, our tariff boards, and all other 
machinery of government to its will, precisely as it per- 
verted the devices of government our forefathers pro- 
vided. It hopes to fasten itself firmly in the dictatorship 
of financial bonds, by the interlocking system of credit. 
It can see far enough to its desire, the time when its 
will will be unchallenged in America. 

" ' After us the deluge,' they think, if they think of 
these things at all. They only know that representative 
government means the end of their selfish rule of to-day. 
Because Woodrow Wilson is the foremost champion of 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 135 

representative government he must be downed at all 
costs. That done the future can take care of itself. 

" The ' interest ' publications can be as malicious as 
they please. Their press associations leave out con- 
venient words or paragraphs, and circulate misrepresen- 
tations as they will, but the truth is seething underneath 
them. 

" The issue is representative government or eventually 
something really radical. The blind see only that Wilson 
is the champion of political freedom, like enlightened 
nations such as Canada and England enjoy. For that 
he is to be defeated at all costs. 

" Beyond to-day they do not see to-morrow ! " 

But there are those who do see and who will lead 
others to see. James T. Lloyd, chairman of the Demo- 
cratic Congressional Committee, has given out this 
statement : 

" When the people of the United States learn that the 
New Jersey Legislature is Republican because of James 
Smith, Jr., who was defeated for election to the United 
States Senate by the Legislature last winter, I doubt 
that it will result in injury to Governor Wilson. Many 
people believe that ex-Senator Smith represents every- 
thing that is bad in politics, and if so, his delivery of 
New Jersey to the Republicans would tend to strengthen 
Governor Wilson with the people rather than to weaken 
him." 

The New York Evening Post says : " It would certainly 
be a queer reason for opposing Wilson as a candidate 



136 WOODROW WILSON 

for the Presidency to allege that he had suffered locally 
from the vengeance of a boss whose power he had defied 
and broken." 

And just take notice that Woodrow Wilson has never 
been jumped off the checker-board as he was about to 
enter the king-row. The psychological moment meets him 
more than half-way, and when Opportunity knocks at his 
door he is up and dressed. 



CHAPTER IX 



THE TIME, THE PLACE, AND THE MAN 

The present time presents the grave problem of distributing 
the fruits of labor and capital, so as to insure the greatest 
good to the greatest number, without impairing the structure 
of a government based on freedom, established, vouched for, and 
: guaranteed by our Constitution. A work of regeneration must 
i be accomplished without destroying existing institutions. How 
1 shall it be done? How can it be done? Through the ballot- 
box. Yes, but there is a power above the ballot-box; a power 
wilded by the statesman who is not self-centered, who is not 
■ clambering by means of every effort to reach some high place, 
'■ but, who, forgetful of himself, has been content to devote his 
energies to elevating the standards of American citizenship, 
; first, as a teacher, who must take rank as one of the foremost 
educators of the present century; second, as a writer, whose 
i ^contributions to literature and history are sure to be an im- 
perishable legacy bequeathed to future generations; third, as 
| Governor of a State which, for years, has been waiting for 
I an executive who could and would deliver it from political 
oligarchy. 

Woodrow Wilson's message is " Reform abuses, and teach the 
people to release their energies intelligently, that peace, justice, 
and prosperity may reign." Shall we heed the voice which 
has brought an invigorating tonic into our political life, or 
shall we decline to listen? Men say that we must meet present 
day issues; that we must restore competition, or else face State 
Socialism; that we must, in some way, bridge over the chasm 
which exists between special privilege and the people. Can it 
be done? We are hopeful. 

If Providence could spare a Washington until representative 
government became established; if Providence could spare a Jef- 
ferson until Democracy became a living issue; if Providence 
could spare a Lincoln until the preservation of the Union was 
assured; then Heaven, we hope, can spare another man until 

137 



138 WOODROW WILSON 

the gates of Opportunity open wide, and the Goddess of Liberty, 
standing at the entrance, exclaims: Peace be with you. — The 
Author. 

Some one has said : " The stock-argument of the Republican 
party is still that it freed the slaves, about forty-five years 
ago. It did; but how many slaves has it ever freed since? " 

When I mentioned to the Governor that I proposed to tell 
the story of " New Jersey Made Over," and that I intended to 
label one chapter " The Time, the Place, and the Man," he 
protested. 

" Won't you call it, ' The Time, the Place, and the Men,' in 
order to give the splendid men in the Legislature, who stood 
by me, credit? To be just? And to encourage? I believe you 
should do this." 

But the altruistic Governor, who is inclined to give too much 
credit to the Legislature, did not understand that I intended to 
develop my story in relationship to the Nation. 

" Our time is one that calls for earnest deeds; 
Reason and Government, like two broad seas, 
Yearn for each other with outstretched arms, 
And roll their white surf higher every day. 

The time is ripe and rotten ripe for change." 

Lowel. 

What proves that the time is ripe? A general dis- 
satisfaction which indicates a progressive and construc- 
tive sentiment; that which seeks to build, rather than 
to destroy. The presence of this sentiment is a healthy 
indication. The discontent is of a wholesome nature. 

There are still many reasons why we should remain 
optimists at this period of the twentieth century. We 
have had more than one hundred and twenty years of 
what seems successful national existence; we have a 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 139 

universal system of popular education, and, without 
doubt, our inherited reverence for free institutions has 
inoculated us with strong progressive tendencies. 

But we must not magnify the excellencies of our gov- 

; ernment and overlook its defects. There are still grave 
problems remaining unsolved. We have not yet found 

• out just how to strike the right balance between free 
trade and protection; or how to establish a financial 
system on a sound basis. Then there are the questions 
of the development of the army and navy, so as to afford 

| us the right protection without consuming too much of 
the nation's resources; the race problem with its arising 
complications; the conservation policy best for the pre- 
servation of our interests; the education of the average 
person so that he or she will not be compelled to spend 
so much time in the struggle for existence; the matter 
of securing greater uniformity and co-operation among 
the States in regard to legislation covering the divorce 
problem; taxation, employer's liability, the control of 
public utilities, and the regulation of elections. There 
are, too, the problems arising under inefficient municipal 
governments, which promise to be reformed through gov- 
ernment by commission; and there are reasons for be- 
lieving that eventually we shall be entirely rid of a 
spoils theory of government, through the advantages 



110 WOODROW WILSON 

of the civil service. We have also to contend with the 
evil of executive use of Federal patronage for political 
purposes, which has already created a bulwark of such 
proportions that we shall find it a difficult matter to 
withstand its influence when it is necessary to make a 
political change. These are among the gravest problems 
which the present time presents. 

We are face to face with new economic conditions, 
which have come upon us with the force of an avalanche. 
They present issues which require our sober considera- 
tion. They touch vitally our very lives. 

Probably the economic question which concerns the 
majority of us most is that of the increase in the cost 
of living, which every one recognizes is out of all pro- 
portion, when compared with the corresponding increase 
in wages, salaries, or average incomes. Statistics are 
flexible things; so we shall not attempt to state what 
the percentage of difference is. Authorities differ; but 
the main facts are obvious. The purchasing power of a 
dollar declines, amazingly, every year. 

We are conscious of injustice underlying a system of 
government which makes present conditions possible. 
Something is wrong; more than one thing is wrong. 
We must seek to correct the evils of the present system 
through a change, which shall be based upon a reform 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 141 

process, neither revolutionary nor strictly conservative. 
This process must necessarily have for one of its features 
the revision of the tariff. The term tariff is synonymous 
with taxation. The term protective tariff, in modern 
times, is synonymous with what amounts to extortion. 

" New times demand new measures and new men ; 
The world advances; and, in time, outgrows 
The laws that in our fathers' days were best." 

r~~ The greatest test of the progress of any era is the 
attitude of the people toward a new moral or political 

I possibility. And new possibilities are conceived, pro- 
jected, and brought to pass by great men. Therefore, 
the reception which we give to these men indicates what 
manner of people we are. 

It is generally admitted that in the United States few 
of our greatest statesmen have been Presidents. We have 
had more than one man " who would rather be right 
than be President." Must history continue to repeat 
itself, or shall we prove our right to be called progressive 
by selecting in future the right man for the right place, 
the man whose achievements indicate that he can suggest 
methods and put into motion reform processes which 
shall eventually help toward the solution of many of 
our present problems? 

And in choosing a leader, it is an unsafe piece of 



142 WOODROW WILSON 

business to trust any man, unless we can first determine 
where his sympathies lie. We have examined the record 
of a great thinker and doer, who has devoted himself to 
the study of governmental affairs. Let us learn more of 
what he thinks. 

Governor Wilson maintains that the big question of 
the day is one of adjustment between economic problems, 
public opinion, and our system of legislation. 

He has said : 

" We collect enough money from the people. The 
trouble is we don't collect the right sums from the right 
ones. . . . Everything comes down to this. What is the 
matter with the tariff? That is a long story, and there 
is a great deal the matter with it. If you go through the 
tariff schedule you will find some nigger in every wood- 
pile; some little word, put into almost every clause of 
the act, which is lining somebody's pockets with money. 

" You know what the policy of protection has been 
in the past. There are some things that may be said 
in favor of the protective policy, and historically speak- 
ing the protective tariff has not in the past very greatly 
increased the cost of living, but in recent years and 
months it has greatly increased the cost of living. Why ? 
Because it has been a protective policy? No, not espe- 
cially that, but because the wall of protection has been 
so high that the great domestic industries have been 
able to form great combinations behind them, knowing 
that anybody with whom they could not come to an 
understanding would break in and hurt the game; and 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 143 

so they have been able to limit the product and increase 
the price. 

" Men are making a cover of the tariff and a cover of 
the corporations. So all the men that we want to get 
out of control are covered now. We have got to organize 
a great hunt. We have got to find their burrows and 
smoke them out. I am not interested in the burrow. 
I am interested in the hunt and the animal that is in 
it. 

" You know the story of the Irishman who while dig- 
ging a hole was asked, ' Pat, what are you doing, digging 
a hole?' and he replied, ' No, sir, I am digging the earth 
and leaving the hole.' It is also like the same Irishman, 
who was digging around the wall of a house. He was 
asked, 'Pat, what are you doing?' and he answered, 
' Faith, I am letting the dark out of the cellar.' Now 
that is exactly what we want to do, let the dark out of 
the cellar. 

" Now look at what the Republican party has done in 
the so-called revision of the tariff. The only thing it has 
done is to change the tariff; and that is the only way 
they have revised the tariff. I believe it is the fashion 
that the tariff system, of to-day, at any rate, was made in 
Rhode Island and there is a certain gentleman, who lives 
in Illinois, who co-operated in standardizing this fashion. 
And what are the standards of these gentlemen in Rhode 
Island and Illinois? Do you know that the Republican 
party undertakes to guarantee profits to the industries of 
this country? Do you know what this means? It means 
that the poorest factors are drawn in with the best; that 
the least economically managed factories are united with 
the most economically managed, and that a level is 
struck; so that all will make a profit. And that is 



144 WOODROW WILSON 

another premium offered in this country on the system 
these gentlemen have fashioned. 

" We are not attacking men. We are attacking a sys- 
tem. The men are most of them honest. The great 
majority of them believe that in serving their own they 
are serving the interests of the people at large. They 
stand at the wrong point of view. They are like athletes 
trained in a game, after the rules of the game have 
been changed, — they have such extraordinary political 
gifts; they are such good athletes, that the deepest pity 
of it is that you cannot make them forget and begin all 
over again, and play the game according to the new 
rules of the people. They seek their objects, not by 
public argument, but by private management. Legisla- 
tion is framed, digested, and concluded in committee- 
rooms. Of course the chief triumph of committee work, 
of covert phrase and unexplained classification, is the 
tariff law. 

" Ever since the passage of the outrageous Payne- 
Aldrich tariff law, our people have been discovering the 
concealed meanings and purposes which lay hidden in 
it. They are discovering item by item how deeply and 
deliberately they were deceived and cheated. This did 
not happen by accident. It came about by design; by 
elaborate, secret design. Questions put upon the floor 
in the House and Senate were not frankly or truly an- 
swered, and an elaborate piece of legislation was foisted 
on the country, which could not possibly have passed if 
it had been comprehended by the whole country." 

Governor Wilson says of " Tariff for Revenue Only " : 

" We are rich enough, we are safe enough in our pros- 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 145 

perity, we are sure enough, of our capacity, of our skill, 
of our resourcefulness, to set ourselves free at last. We 
are ready now in our maturity to return to the only 
uses of government of which the mature can approve. 
Taxation must never be used for the benefit of some at 
the expense of others. The power of the government 
must never be loaned to those who cannot sustain them- 
selves. The only legitimate object of taxation is revenue 
for the support of the government. 

" I dare say that we can never have free trade in this 
country. It is wise and necessary that we should leave 
direct taxation, for the most part, to the States for 
the maintenance of their governments and enterprises. 
The Federal Government will probably always derive the 
greater part of its needed revenues from duties on im- 
ports. But it is possible, as it will be wise, and in the 
long run imperative, to base those duties upon the revenue 
needs of the government and not upon a theory of 
protection. 

" This change cannot be brought about suddenly. We 
cannot arbitrarily turn right about face and pull one 
policy up by the roots and cast it aside, while we plant 
another in virgin soil. A great industrial system has 
been built up in this country under the fosterage of the 
government, behind a wall of unproductive taxes. The 
change must be brought about, first here, then there, and 
then there again. Circumstances have cleared our per- 
ception of the facts with regard to some of the tariff 
schedules, and we can deal with them with a relatively 
free hand without any fear that we shall create damag- 
ing disturbances in the business of the country. We must 
move from step to step with as much prudence as 
resolution. 



146 WOODROW WILSON 

" And while we do so we must create by absolute fair- 
ness and open-mindedness the atmosphere of mutual con- 
cession. There are no old-scores to be paid off, there 
are no resentments to be satisfied, there is no revolution 
to be attempted; men of every interest must be drawn 
into the conference as to what it behooves us to do, and 
what it is possible for us to do. No one should be ex- 
cluded from counsel, except those who will not come in 
upon terms of equality and the common interest. We deal 
with great and delicate matters. We should deal with 
them with pure and elevated purpose, without fear, with- 
out excitement, without undue haste, like men dealing 
with the sacred fortunes of a great country, and not 
like those who play for political advantage or seek to 
reverse any policy in their own behalf." 

Commenting upon the protectionist ground of the Re- 
publican party, Governor Wilson says: 

" In the last national platform of the Republican party, 
the country is promised duties which will equal the 
difference in the cost of production between this country 
and the foreign countries with which our manufacturers 
are obliged to compete, ' in addition,' it is naively added, 
' to a reasonable profit.' One cannot help wondering how 
anybody who knows anything of the real circumstances i 
of industry could have drawn such a plank with a straight 
face. 

" It is not too much to say that the whole proposition 
is ignorant and preposterous. No protectionist of the \ 
earlier school ever allowed his mind to go so far as this 
in its extremest vagary. Taken in its plain, logical sig- J 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 147 

nificance, this can mean nothing else than absolutely 
universal protection. 

" Tf this country is to be the snug harbor for those 
who are at a disadvantage in the markets of the world, 
why should it not also, by the convenient method of 
combination, be a refuge for those who are also at a 
disadvantage in the markets of America itself? Are 
there not evidences that it has become just that? Have 
not the great combinations, recently effected in this 
country, brought about just such a result? 

" Of a dozen mills or factories brought together in a 
single trust or combination, there is always a very con- 
siderable variety in the cost of production. In some the 
machinery has not been brought up to date, the plant is 
not built in a way to lend itself to the most efficient 
methods of production ; the market is not quite so access- 
ible; the source of raw materials is more difficult of 
access. 

" Again and again it has happened that after the com- 
bination was effected, the less efficient factories and 
mills were closed down, and only the more efficient con- 
tinued in operation; but the business as newly consti- 
tuted had to carry the cost of the original merger of 
the inefficient mills and factories. They were probably 
put into the combination at a figure greatly exceeding 
their real value. This figure enters into the issue of the 
securities of the corporation; the profits must be made 
upon those figures if the stockholders are to get di- 
vidends; and so the country must carry for an indefinite 
period inefficient establishments which have been actually 
closed and put out of business." 

These are the same views which were entertained by 



148 WOODROW WILSON 

Dr. Wilson when he wrote, in October, 1909, an able 
article for the North American Review, called " The 
Tariff Make-Believe." A standpatter who read this said 
to me : " Don't you believe that if Wilson were elected 
President he would disturb business?" 

Then I recalled what I had so often heard the Governor 
say in public speeches: 

" I don't know of any one, who recommends reform in 
our system, who wants to disturb anything honest. We 
want an equilibrator; we want something to counteract 
sudden, too radical changes. But let it be understood 
conservatism is not inconsistent with change, sometimes 
with very rapid change. I will not admit that simply to 
sit tight is to sit. safe. Those who hold back must re- 
member that they are sitting on a moving machine. I 
will let things alone if you will hold things still, but 
if I see certain patent abuses, it seems to me most 
unpatriotic to keep hands off. 

" Is it going to disturb business to get back on a con- 
stitutional and honest basis? Are you willing to stand 
for that business ? Is it going to hurt business to restore 
confidence? What is the basis of prosperity? The basis 
of prosperity is co-operative; the basis of business and 
prosperity is confidence; the basis of prosperity is a new 
figure and spirit in the social body. If you depress the 
working classes, for example, make them hopeless and 
resentful, and give them the feeling that they are not 
getting their just dues, do you suppose that they are 
going to be the producing class they were ; do you suppose 
that the wealth is going to be produced as it would be if 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 149 

they felt they were partners in the thing, justly treated, 
honorably dealt with, generously paid? 

" What is the matter with the business of this country 
at the present time? Men continually say in my ear 
that business is not in a satisfactory condition in this 
country. They point out this undertaking and that un- 
dertaking and the other that is running at half force 
as if waiting for something. 

" Is there a business man who does not know that the 
trouble with business now is uncertainty? You do not 
know what is going to happen to-morrow. Why don't 
you know? Because the men who are in authority tell 
you one thing to-day and another to-morrow ; because the 
President of the United States, his Attorney-General, all 
those associated with him, give out one utterance one 
day and then the next day take it back and apologize 
for it. 

" You have heard the President speak about the execu- 
tion of the Anti-Trust Law. You have heard the Attorney- 
General quoted with regard to that. Do you know what 
either of them is going to do? Does anybody know? 
Do they themselves know what they are going to do? 
What evideDce have you that you know what they are 
going to do? They have everybody guessing, their 
friends included, and you cannot conduct sound business 
upon a test of guessing. You have got to know what 
the morrow is going to bring forth. 

" Unless business is sustained by the confidence of the 
public that it is just; that it is founded upon necessity; 
that it rests upon fair dealing; that there is fair com- 
petition; that everybody has an equal show — you know 
what is going to happen. There is going to be universal 
restlessness, suspicions, envy, malice, a gathering force 



150 WOODROW WILSON 

of passion which sooner or later will tear at the very 
roots of the whole structure and destroy it. 

" What is justice, then, in politics and in the field 
of business? Here are the remedies we propose in order 
to reproduce confidence. That is the object of every bill 
that I am interested in. I want to see the policies of 
the party that I belong to shaped not to the temporary, 
but to the permanent interests of business in this country. 

" Canada declined to have commercial relations with 
us. Why should they fear union with us? Because they 
are vastly ahead of us in things that make for orderly 
life and steady business. We have staggered from panic 
(o panic, while their banking system, their financial sys- 
tem and their corporation system are on a stable basis 
that we have not known or reached. America is 
behindhand." 

Lawrence O. Murray, Comptroller of the National Cur- 
rency, in his annual report recently submitted to the 
Second Session of the Sixty-second Congress, makes 
this startling statement. " The dishonest practice by 
officers of National Banks of receiving personal compensa- 
tion for loans made by the bank, is a growing evil, and 
has already reached such proportions as to call for 
criminal legislation on the subject. In this manner," 
he adds, "either the bank is defrauded of lawful in- 
terest which it would otherwise receive, or usurious 
interest is exacted of a borrower by a corrupt officer. 
A secret reward to the officers is sometimes a deliberate 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 151 

bribe for obtaining a loan on insufficient security." Mr. 
Murray recommends that " Federal or State corporations 
holding stock in National Banks be made liable to assess- 
ment as shareholders.'' He also asks Congress to extend 
to ten years the statute of limitations for the prosecution 
of offences under the National Banking laws. 

We propose, in all seriousness, a new question for 
debating clubs, — Which is on the safer and the more 
stable basis in the United States to-day: business or 
aviation ? 

We have already spoken of the great question of re- 
forming the financial system. Governor Wilson has 
pointed out that control of credit is dangerously con- 
centrated; at any rate, all credit upon any large scale. 

" The great monopoly in this country is the money 
monopoly. So long as that exists our old variety and 
freedom and individual energy of development are out 
of the question. A great industrial nation is controlled 
by its system of credit. The growth of the nation, there- 
fore, and all our activities, are in the hands of a few men, 
who, even if their action be honest and intended for 
the public interest, are necessarily concentrated upon 
the great undertakings in which their own money is 
involved, and who necessarily, by very reason of their 
own limitations, chill and check and destroy genuine 
economic freedom. This is the greatest question of all, 
and to this statesmen must address themselves with an 



152 WOODROW WILSON 

earnest determination to serve the long future and the 
true liberties of men." 

These utterances by Governor Wilson have brought 
forth national and international comment. Some of the 
New York papers inquired after the Governor's Harris- 
burg speech, " Where does the money monopoly exist ? 
How is it acquired? How is it exerted? and what are 
the evils attending it ? " — all questions quite easily 
answered. 

About the time that Governor Wilson made his famous 
money monopoly address, some remarkable transactions 
occurred in Wall Street. J. Pierpont Morgan & Company 
extended their colossal tentacles until the total assets of 
the banks controlled by them exceeded $1,000,000,000. 
While this sum is not all Mr. Morgan's money, it is for 
his firm to say where it shall be loaned or invested. 

The Morgan triumvirate of banks, insurance com- 
panies, and trust companies is, without doubt, the 
eighth wonder of the world. The principal railroad com- 
panies, the country banks, the oil and steel industries 
are subservient to the will of the " money monopoly." 
This is a dominating factor in politics, as well as finance; 
for bankers, political bosses, courts, and corporation 
counsels understand that the Morgan octopus is the main- 
spring of commercial life, without whose aid the wheels 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 153 

of industry cannot turn round. The most superficial 
observer can see that there is danger in this system. 

Samuel Untermyer, the distinguished New York law- 
yer, recently stated: 

" Governor Wilson of New Jersey did not mistake or 
overstate either the facts or the immediate overshadow- 
ing peril from the growing concentration of the money 
power in America. The situation is unlike anything to 
be found in any other part of the world. Every man, 
with an intimate acquaintance with the conditions, knows 
that the dangers are little understood as yet, and are 
vastly underestimated. The two great and difficult pro- 
blems that confront us are: first, to curb the concentra- 
tion of the money power, and second, to regulate and 
control the industrial competition engaged in interstate 
commerce." 

If we are to get at the root of this matter we must 
seek to control the extent to which the money monopoly 
may make use of other people's money, and to regulate 
the power which is now exercised by the money magnates 
over the lives and fortunes of others. 

The recent bill of complaint submitted in the name of 
the United States Government in the suit for the dissolu- 
tion of the steel trust contains the same allegations 
which Governor Wilson was the first man to make public. 

Speaking at the Jackson Day dinner, January 8, 1912, 
in Washington, D. C., Woodrow Wilson said: 



154 WOODROW WILSON 

" The greatest danger that now confronts this country 
is not in the single combination of capital. Though this 
is dangerous enough in all countries. The danger lies in 
the combination of combinations, — in the existence of a 
single group of men who own the banks, the vast mining 
interests, the water-power industries and other great 
companies. 

" It is a colossal task to disentangle this colossal com- 
munity of interest. These combinations of combinations 
are the dangers which we must seek to remedy carefully 
and slowly. 

" We must break this spiral of concentrated power 
which is ever coiling closer and closer. For myself, I 
believe in the good old rule of the Donnybrook Fair: 
' Hit all the heads you see.' Make sure before that your 
shillalas are made of good Irish hickory. Lop off special 
favors wherever they are to be found. Cut off these 
excrescences. You may do it safely. For you will know 
that you are not cutting living tissue. We can break this 
community of interest, and we can do it without hurting 
the individual parts, though there are instances where 
I would not consider it necessary to be unusually polite. 
You can't establish competition by law, but you can 
take away obstacles to competition by law." 

The problems arising under the money monopoly in- 
tersect closely those relating to the regulation of cor- 
porations, concerning which Governor Wilson has some 
ideas, and with which he has had much experience in 
New Jersey. He says: 

" To put Federal law back of the great corporations 




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AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 155 

would have been to give them the right to dominate and 
override local conditions. We believe in the exercise of 
the Federal powers to the utmost extent wherever it is 
necessary, that they should be brought into action for 
the common benefit. But we do not believe the inter- 
vention of Federal powers either necessary or desirable. 
The task of right regulation in the case of common 
carriers, in particular, whose business spans a score of 
States, is a task in which we must co-operate with one 
another, and with the Federal authorities. 

" One of the fundamental things to remember is that 
there are legitimate corporations and illegitimate cor- 
porations. The one is intended to aid business, the other 
is intended as a monopoly in restraint of trade and does 
exercise monopoly. It is that thing the country has 
made up its mind it is not going to stand." 

Governor Wilson has criticised the Sherman Anti-Trust 
Law for its looseness in defining both offences and 
penalties. 

" We want a law for our business that will give an 
absolutely clear definition of what is illegal and what 
is legal. We want an absolute definition of what is 
going to be done if the law is violated. Some impatient 
business man said : ' If they are going to send somebody 
to jail, why don't they get to work and send them to 
jail and let us get through with it. We are not objecting 
to sending them to jail ; we are objecting to not knowing 
whether they are going to jail or not.' 

" The enterprise we are engaged on is the restoration 
of business in America. Business can be restored only 



156 WOODROW WILSON 

by putting it on a foundation universally just and open 
to the examination of other just men." 

What does Governor Wilson believe to be the best 
policy of conservation? is a frequent question. 

" Even the large matter of conservation is more a 
question for the States than for the Federal government. 
The Federal government can act in the matter only in 
so far as it still controls lands and forests and mines and 
water courses. The great bulk of the land of the conti- 
nent and of its resources has passed out of Federal con- 
trol long ago. The States must determine whether the 
natural resources of the country are to be exhausted or 
renewed, wasted or conserved, and the matter will re- 
quire all the more careful statesmanship and planning, 
because it will touch life very intimately at many points. 

" We shall not be satisfied until we have found the 
way, not only to preserve our great natural resources, 
but also to conserve the strength and health and energy 
of our people themselves, by protection against wrongful 
forms of labor, and by securing them against the myriad 
forms of harm, which have come from the selfish uses of 
economic power.." 

" It seems to me that the fundamental question of 
conservation in America is the conservation of the 
energy, the elasticity, the hope of the American peo- 
ple. I deal a great deal with friends, for I have had 
such friends all my life, who are engaged in manufac- 
turing in this country, and almost every one of them will 
admit that while he studies his machinery, and will dis- 
miss a man who overtaxes the machinery so that its bear- 
ings get heated, so that the stress of work is too much 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OYER 157 

for it, so that it is racked and overdone, not a man of 
them dismisses a superintendent because he puts too great: 
a strain upon the souls and hearts of his employees. 
We rack and exhaust and reject the man machine, and 
we honestly, economically, thoughtfully preserve the 
steel machine; for we can get more men — we have only 
to beckon to them; the streets are full of them waiting 
for employment; but we cannot, without cost, get a new 
machine. 

" Now that kind of conservation is a great deal more 
than the question of overstraining the factories. If I 
knew my business and were a manufacturer, what would 
I do? I would create such conditions of sanitation, such 
conditions of life and comfort and health as would keep 
my employees in the best physical condition, and I would 
establish such a relationship with them as would make 
them believe that I was a fellow human being, with a 
heart under my jacket, and that they were not my tools, 
but my partners. 

" Then you would see the gleam in the eye, then you 
would see that human energy spring into expression 
which is the only energy which differentiates America 
from the rest of the world. Men are used everywhere, 
men are driven under all climes and flags, but we have 
boasted in America that every man was a free unit of 
whom we had to be as careful as we would be of our- 
selves. America's economic supremacy depends upon the 
moral character and the resilient hopefulness of our work- 
men. So I say, when you are studying questions of con- 
servation, realize what you have been wasting, the forests, 
water, minerals, and the hearts and bodies of men. That 
is the new question of conservation. I say new, because 
only in our day has the crowding gotten so close and 



158 WOODROW WILSON 

hot that there is no free outlet for men. Don't you re- 
member that until the year 1890, every ten years when 
we took the census, we were able to draw a frontier in 
this country? It is true that in what is called the golden 
age, 1849, when gold was discovered in California, we 
sent outposts to the Pacific and settled the further slope 
of the Rocky Mountains. But between us and that slope, 
until 1890, there intervened an unoccupied space where 
the census map-makers could draw a frontier. But when 
we reached the year 1900 there was no frontier discover- 
able in America. 

" What did that mean ? That meant that men who 
found conditions intolerable in crowded America no 
longer had a place free where they could take up land 
of their own and start a new hope. That is what that 
meant, and as America turns upon herself her seething 
millions and the cauldron grows hotter and hotter, is it 
not the great duty of America to see that her men remain 
free and happy under the conditions that have now sprung 
up? It is true that we needed a frontier so much that 
after the Spanish War we annexed a new frontier some 
seven thousand miles off in the Pacific. But that is a 
long cry, and it takes the energy of a very young man 
to seek that outlet in the somewhat depressing climate 
of the Philippines. 

" So we now realize that Americans are not free to 
release themselves. We have got to live together and be 
happy in the family. I remember an old Judge who 
was absolutely opposed to divorce, because he said that 
a man will be restless as long as he knows he can 
get loose — but that so soon as it is firmly settled 
in his mind that he has got to make the best of it, he 
finds a sudden current of peace and contentment. Now 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 159 

there is no divorce for us in our American life. We 
have got to put up with one another, and we have got 
to see to it that we so regulate and assuage one another 
that we will not be intolerable to each other. We have 
got to get a modus vivendi in America for happiness, and 
that is our new problem. And I call you to witness it 
is a new problem. America never had to finish anything 
before; she has been at liberty to do the thing with a 
broad hand, quickly, improvise something and go on to 
the next thing; leave all sorts of waste behind her, push 
on, blaze trails through the forest, beat paths across the 
prairie. But now we have even to stop and pave our 
streets, we are just finding that out. I suppose it was 
good for the digestion to bump over the old cobble stones, 
but it was not good for trade, and we have got to pull 
up the cobble stones and make real sidewalks that won't 
jolt the life out of us. Let these somewhat whimsical 
comparisons serve to illustrate what I am talking about. 

" Now there is another new thing in America, and that 
is trade. Well, you laugh at me and say, ' Why, America 
has been supreme in trade ever since she was created '? 
Has she? We have traded with one another, but we have 
traded with nobody else in proportions worth mention- 
ing. Yes, we have in grain, in the great food stuffs, but 
do you know what is happening? Our food-stuff exports, 
our grain exports are falling, falling, falling, not because 
we produce less, but because we need more ourselves. We 
are getting nearer and nearer to the point where we will 
ourselves consume all that our farms produce. Then we 
will not have anything with which to pay our balance, will 
we? Yes, we will, because while our exports of grain 
have been falling, our exports of manufactured articles 
have been increasing by leaps and bounds. 



100 WOODROW WILSON 

"But under what circumstance? Long ago, after we 
had forgotten the excellent things that the first genera- 
tion of statesmen had done for us in America, we deliber- 
ately throttled the merchant marine of the United 
States, and now it is so completely throttled that you 
are more likely to see the flag of the little kingdom of 
Greece upon the seas than the flag of the United States. 
And you know that the Nation that wants foreign com- 
merce must have the arms of commerce. If she has t!ie 
ships, her sailors will see to it that her merchants have the 
markets. I am not arguing this with you, I am telling 
you, for the facts, if we look but a little ways for them, 
will absolutely demonstrate this circumstance, that we 
have more to fear in the competition of England, Ger- 
many, and France, because of the multitude of English, 
French, and German carriers upon the sea than we have 
to fear from the ingenuity of the English manufacturers 
or the enterprise of the German merchants. 

" Anybody who has dealt with railroads knows what 
I am talking about. Railroads in America have made 
and unmade cities and communities have they not? They 
would do it now if they were not watched by the inter- 
state commerce commission. We are obliging them to 
work without discrimination, now, but they at one time 
discriminated as they pleased, and they determined 
where cities were to grow and where cities were to 
decay. 

" Very well. The same thing is happening upon the 
high seas. The foreign carrier can tell you where you 
can go and where you cannot go. He can discriminate 
against you and in favor of his own merchants and manu- 
facturers, and he will, because he does. 

" And while all this is going on, and we lack the means, 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OYER 161 

we are fairly bursting our own jacket. We are making 
more manufactured goods than we can consume our- 
selves, and every manufacturer is waking up to the fact 
that if we do not let anybody climb over our tariff wall 
to get in, he has got to climb to get out; that we have 
deliberately domesticated ourselves; that we have de- 
liberately cut ourselves off from the currents of trade; 
that we have deliberately divorced ourselves from world 
commerce ; and now, if we are not going to stifle economic- 
ally, we have got to find our way out into the great 
international exchanges of the world. There is a new 
question. 

" I was speaking in Boston the other evening at a real 
estate exchange, and I asked those gentlemen what is 
going to keep real estate values in Boston steady? I 
asked them if they realized what was likely to happen 
after the year 1915. You know that in that year it is 
likely that the great ditch in the Isthmus will be open 
for commerce. We are not opening it for America, by 
the way, because we haven't any ships to send through 
it; we are opening it for England and Germany. We 
are pouring out American millions in order that German 
exporters, English exporters, and French exporters may 
profit by our enterprise ; and when that is done, of course 
something is going to happen to America." 

Governor Wilson holds most decided views on the ex- 
tension of the service which the government shall render 
to its people; for instance, the necessity of establishing 
a Parcels Post, a Federal Income Tax, and more 
numerous Postal Savings Banks. 



102 AYOODROW WILSON 

He believes that we can only realize popular govern- 
ment through putting the machinery of political control, 
both in state and nation, in the hands of the people, 
through extended direct primaries, a short ballot, and, as 
we mentioned before, wherever necessary and practical, 
the initiative, the referendum, and the recall : although he 
does not believe in the recall of judges. He holds the 
opinion that since judges are not lawmakers, their duty is 
not to determine what the law shall be, but what the law 
is; that it is sufficient that the people should have the 
power to change the law when they will ; that it is not 
necessary that the people should directly influence by 
threat of recall those who merely interpret the law already 
established. 

Many who listen to Woodrow Wilson believe him to 
be a radical, and yet every now and then, if one watches 
him closely, he will observe that while Governor Wilson's 
utterances are perfectly straight from the shoulder and 
have a radical ring, yet he qualifies them with such con- 
servative expressions as these: 

" We ought always to recognize that it is of the very 
essence of constructive statesmanship that we should 
think and act temperately, wisely, justly, in the spirit 
of those who reconstruct and amend, not in the spirit 
of those who destroy and seek to build from the foun- 
dations again. . . . 



AND NEW JERSEY AIADE OVER 163 

" The American people is an eminently just and an 
intensely practical people. They don't wish to lay vio- 
lent hands upon their own affairs ; but they do claim the 
right to look them over with close and frank and fearless 
scrutiny, from top to bottom. . . . 

" Every direction you turn you will see that what we 
are straining after is to bring the government back witliin 
the touch of the people and to use it in behalf of the 
people." 

And again we inquire, " Where is the chief place in 
which nearly all political experiments shall begin?" 
Woodrow Wilson says: 

" The States are the trying out grounds of our political 
system. They are full partners with the Federal govern- 
ment in the inspiriting programme of reform. More and 
more, therefore, would it seem, will the energetic men 
of this country find their profitable field of service in 
the politics of our States. It is becoming evident that 
they are to be the battle-ground of political reform." 

Have we in Woodrow Wilson a friend of organized 
labor? Yes. 

" I have always been the warm friend of organized 
labor. It is in my opinion not only perfectly legitimate, 
but absolutely necessary, that labor should organize if 
it is to secure justice from organized capital. And every- 
thing that it does to improve the condition of working- 
men, to obtain legislation that will impose full legal 
responsibility upon the employer for his treatment of his 
•employees and for their protection against accident, to 



164 WOODROW WILSON 

secure just and adequate wages and to put reasonable 
limits upon the working-day and upon all the exactions 
of those who employ labor ought to have the hearty sup- 
port of all fair-minded and public-spirited men ; for there 
is a sense in which the condition of labor is the condition 
of the nation itself. The laboring man cannot benefit 
himself by injuring the industries of the country. But 
I am much more afraid that the great corporations, com- 
binations, and trusts will do the country deep harm than 
I am that the labor organizations will harm it, and yet 
I believe the corporations to be necessary instruments of 
modern business." 

Is Woodrow Wilson a strong party man? He is, first 
of all, a people's man. To be sure he is a Democrat with 
a big "D"; but notice what he says about discarding 
party labels. 

" The interesting thing of our politics now is that men 
are not labelled. You cannot tell from the way a man 
voted last time how he will vote the next time. Men are 
beginning to find out that the safe line is the right line." 

" What keeps the progressive elements of the two great 
parties apart?" I inquired. 

" The reasons are sentimental," he replied. " The prin- 
ciples are practically identical. As to how long the pro- 
gressive branches of the two parties will stay apart we 
cannot tell. It won't be forever." 

In a recent speech concerning the progressive move- 
ment Governor Wilson said: 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OYER 165 

"The great progressive sentiment which now more 
and more dominates the country, and only awaits its 
opportunity to determine the policies of the Government 
is not accidental, is not merely a passing phase expres- 
sive of the temperament of an eager people. It is a 
thing that has arisen steadily by natural and inevitable 
force, like the tides of the ocean. 

" The most profitable thing that we can do, in order 
to reassure ourselves, is to ask why this great body of 
progressive opinion has grown so strong; why it has 
spread to almost every part of the country. 

" The facts are unmistakable enough. The history of 
the present administration has illustrated them at every 
turn. 

" We have seen an honest and patriotic man in the 
Presidential chair struggling with the rising power, in- 
volved in greater and greater difficulties, because he did 
not understand that power, or comprehend the great pur- 
poses that lay behind it, and yet unable to curb it and 
seeming, in spite of himself, to increase its volume by 
the very acts attempted to check it. 

" What has happened ? What is it that the stand-pat 
ranks of the Republican party vaguely battle with? Why 
is the country attempting to break away from old party 
formulas, and blaze a new path for itself in politics under 
a changed leadership, and by new measures of reform? 

" Because within less than a generation all the economic 
conditions of life and business in this country have 
changed almost beyond recognition, while our politics 
have all but stood still. There has been much con- 
troversy. There has been loud shouting as if upon a 
field of battle. Some measures of reform there have 
been, but there has been no steady, consistent force to 



166 WOODROW WILSON 

give them their full effect, to guide them, to adapt them 
to conditions all along the line. The sum of the matter 
is that our life has changed and that our policies are 
belated. 

" Our laws lag almost a generation behind our busi- 
ness conditions and our political exigencies. 

"Those who insist upon undertaking the adjustment; 
those who argue that our laws should be brought up to 
date — to the date marked upon the calendar of our 
economic advance and change, are called radicals, not 
because they would change the facts, but because they 
would adjust the law to the facts. 

" I do not perceive in the United States any danger- 
ous volume of passionate dissatisfaction. It seems to me 
that the air grows clearer rather than thicker. There is 
no sign of storm on the horizon, but there are many 
signs of a hopeful and better day. Those who once con- 
tended that nothing was the matter are now admitting 
that a great deal is the matter, that much has been 
done in the world of business and in the money market 
that ought not to have been done. They are growing 
willing to discuss the matter, to confer, to admit the 
necessity for remedies, and while their temper has 
changed the temper of reformers has perhaps grown more 
sober. They are beginning to discuss the practicable 
means of change in a more direct and businesslike way. 

" Recent investigations have been of the greatest ser- 
vice. They have disclosed and are disclosing, item by 
item, just the methods of business which have been most 
harmful and most unjust. I think they have opened the 
eyes of the very men who gave the testimony. 

" We see that somewhere near the centre of the whole 
trouble lies the great system of governmental favors 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER, 167 

which we call the tariff. Round about the tariff has been 
built up a body of business undertaking in which control 
has been too much concentrated. In order to maintain 
this control it has been necessary to be sure of the 
patronage of the Government, and so business has gone 
deep into politics. Legislative action has been controlled 
by special business interests. Party machinery has been 
used to serve private purposes and to make sure pecuniary 
profit. The whole normal process of government has 
been reversed and government itself has come to be pri- 
vately owned. The phrase may be exaggerated, but it 
is only the brief epitome of a state of affairs the main 
facts of which are only too plain. 

" And so progressives are drawing together, not to 
destroy anything, but to effect a wholesome readjust- 
ment; not hastily, not by any too extensive plan which 
runs beyond what we see and know, but item by item 
we must set the government free from private control 
and set business free from private control, so that the 
economic courses of our life may run free again, and 
that with their freedom we may return to individual 
opportunity and open the gates to fresh untrammelled 
achievement. . . . This is the gospel of the progressive." 

What does Woodrow Wilson think about the world 
peace movement? 

" No man can sit down and withhold his hands from 
the warfare against wrong and get peace out of his 
acquiescence. The most solid and satisfying peace is 
that which comes from this constant spiritual warfare ; 
and there are times in the history of nations when they 
must take up the crude instruments of bloodshed, in 



168 WOODROW WILSON 

order to vindicate spiritual conceptions. For liberty is 
a spiritual conception, and when men take up arms to 
set other men free, there is something sacred and holy 
in the warfare. I will not cry peace so long as there 
is sin and wrong in the world." 

An attempt has been made in this volume to present 
both the records and the views of a statesman who is 
looming large as a possible President of the United States. 
Reference has been made to some of the greatest pro- 
blems of the states and the nation not yet solved. The 
time is most opportune for a man of understanding, pa- 
triotism, energy, initiative, force, fearlessness, and experi- 
ence to come forward and help us to work out reform 
processes which shall meet not only present emergencies, 
but which shall comprehend the needs of the future. 

Many such times have occurred in our history, but not 
always has there been a leader on hand to meet the 
issues, and sometimes we have not been quick to recognize 
the merit of those who might have served us most ad- 
mirably and efficiently. In fact, we have quite often 
deprived ourselves of the best service which our states- 
men might have given us, through distrust, envy, ig- 
norance, and a fear that possibly some little pet hobby 
or industry might suffer, if certain leaders came forward. 
We have discounted the splendid attainments of many 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 169 

great men, and then, later, when we have discovered (hat 
(here was much in their philosophy and ethics which we 
needed, we have turned round, stolen the thunder of those 
whom we have previously scorned, and clothed with 
power some individual who was progressive enough to 
take the cue, and make the application of the rejected 
man's principles. 

We take it for granted that the majority of the people 
now realize that there is something wrong in our organi- 
zation and administration of government, but are we 
going to seize the opportunity and turn a search-light on 
the facts? Are we going to march with dark-lanterns 
into the recesses of the Hall of Private Management? 
Or shall we continue to compromise and barter and trade 
until we have nothing left worth saving? Shall we, when 
we find a plague spot in government " cut deep " and 
remove it by the roots, or shall we sprinkle it over with 
toilet water to conceal the odor? We are on the eve of 
a critical era. We are being tested every day. Shall 
we meet the test? And change, unless it is the right 
change, will not settle anything. We must give our very 
best thought, attention, and action to this matter. 
Things are getting by the boards every day. Men very 
often go out of office; but methods do not. The Demo- 
cratic revival in this country is only a part of a world 



170 WOODROW WILSON 

movement which is taking place from the Occident to 
the Orient. No government can reach or retain its 
efficiency, unless the people pursue a policy of eternal 
vigilance. The time is now. 

The Time, the Place 

Emerson tells us " America is another word for op- 
portunity." We may say Democracy is another word 
for opportunity. If it stands for anything it stands for 
equality of privileges, not the cornering of privileges. 
The contest is not one between parties, but one between 
principles; between the special interests and the people. 
It is an old, old story. We are only passing through a 
test period — the same, except for different economic con- 
ditions, through which the progressive nations across the 
water have all passed. Should not the Democratic 
party, with its sacred traditions and principles, be the 
instrument for re-Jeffersonizing the present age, and 
delivering the American people from an era of beauti- 
fully indefinite policies? Will not its record during the 
last session of Congress, when it demonstrated most, 
efficiently its capacity for carrying out the popular will, 
commend the Democratic party to all lovers of free gov- 
ernment, regardless of former party affiliations? 

The Place — the Democratic national convention 



IND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 171 

whose function shall be to select " the ablest and most 
sincere man available " to lead us. Carlyle has told us 
that often, indeed, time has called for a great man when 
no great man has appeared. Now the time calls. A 
great man has arrived. Shall the place unite with the 
needs of the time and place the man where he may render 
his greatest public service ; or shall the hostility of some 
faction of special interests, inspired by malice or some 
imaginary fear, make it possible through the two thirds 
rule, necessary to nominate a Democrat in the national 
^convention, to defeat this man of the people? We know 
right well what becomes of parties when they cannot find 
their right leader. Let us hope that the year 1912 will 
not witness a " Tweedle-dee " candidate running on a 
" Tweedle-dum " platform in one party ; and a " Tweedle- 
dum " candidate running on a " Tweedle-dee " platform 
in the other great political party. 

Some interested gentlemen have examined Woodrow 
Wilson's record with a microscope; and they have found 
what may be called one infinitesimal inconsistency, 
namely, that he did not believe in the initiative and re- 
ferendum when he taught Jurisprudence at Princeton. 
The answer of any thinking person to this must be that 
the initiative and referendum are only experimental fea- 
tures in their incipient stages in the United States. Thev 



172 WOODROW WILSON 

have not been in use long enough, except in a few Western 
States, to furnish any very conclusive evidence of their 
practical success, or permanent efficiency, but as the ex- 
periment develops we are growing to think kindly of both 
these features of reform, and indications are that they 
will demonstrate a high degree of usefulness. Naturally, 
a great many of us have changed our minds since the 
theory has been more carefully studied, and, in many 
cases, put into what will, no doubt, prove successful 
operation. Wise men still change their minds. And we 
should remember that " A foolish consistency is the hob- 
goblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and 
philosophers and divines." 

Not only have the gentlemen determined on Governor 
Wilson's political destruction, made it a crime for one 
to change his mind, but they have likewise made it a 
crime for one to tell the truth. 

If we are correctly informed Colonel George Harvey 
asked Governor Wilson a direct question, point blank. 
Very well, then, the Governor answered it, point blank, 
without any frills or furbelows. Straightway, the Gov- 
ernor's enemies cried " Ingrate," " Lese majesty ! " Then 
we must admit, must we, that if a man of political aspira- 
tions talks honestly, frankly, and candidly he endangers 
his prospects ? Well, if we must, we must, that 's all ; 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 173 

yet we refuse to believe that right-thinking people will 
repudiate a man who refuses to buy his way with double- 
dealing, flattery, and intrigue. We remember that 
Emerson defined a friend as " one with whom we may be 
sincere." All right then. Was Governor Wilson talk- 
ing to a friend, and was he with friends, when the Man- 
hattan Club incident occurred? We would like to know. 
Our curiosity is aroused. 

However that may have been, we do know that on 
account of Colonel Harvey's " supposed environment," 
even though his editorial activities in Governor Wilson's 
interest were sincere and independent, many people were 
suspicious of Harvey's aggressive advocacy of the Wilson 
candidacy. Many of Governor W x ilson's friends, Colonel 
Watterson among them, had suggested to the Governor 
that it would be a good idea for Colonel Harvey to tone 
down somewhat his editorial support. These intimations 
reached Colonel Harvey's ears, and when he questioned 
Governor Wilson, requesting a frank reply, what could 
Mr. Wilson, in the name of honor, do, but tell the truth ? 
For this he is to be punished. 

" Let us come to the conclusion of the whole matter." 
Governor Wilson did not wish to have the entire country 
misunderstand him, and he refused to accept, without 
protest, support coming from a publication, which is 



174 ^YOODRO^V WILSON 

said to be directly owned and controlled by the special 
interests. If Woodrow Wilson wins, in the great na- 
tional contest, he will not enter the White House wearing 
any man's harness. He will go to Washington, if he 
goes at all, as he went to Trenton, a free man. He needs 
only the disinterested support of the people who believe 
thoroughly in him and in his principles. No embellish- 
ments from any source are necessary. The plain truth 
disseminated by the plain people will go a long way. If 
Woodrow Wilson's achievements do not carry him to 
the place of distinction which he deserves, it is better 
that he shall not reach it. 

The Washington correspondent of the Newark Evening 
News, John E. Lathrop, says: 

" It is now accepted as true that Governor Wilson was 
asked by Colonel Watterson or Colonel Harvey to take 
financial assistance from Thomas Fortune Ryan, that he 
refused and that at least Colonel Watterson was annoyed 
because his efforts to commit Governor Wilson to the 
political chaperonage of Ryan had gone awry. 

" And the acceptance generally here of that as the ex- 
planation of the much-bruited affair has caused that re- 
action which has been expected from the beginning. This 
reaction is sweeping. It appears to have wiped out the 
slight injury that an insufficient statement of the facts 
at first had produced — for it was not denied that, at 
first, the opponents of Governor Wilson produced a tern- 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 175 

porary situation that was not advantageous to the New 
Jersey candidate. 

" To-day, instead of indulging in adverse criticism 
of Wilson, for the part he played, he is commended ; 
and in addition the disposition to condemn Watterson 
and Harvey is noticeable. In fact, indignation is ex- 
pressed on every side at what appears to have been an 
attempt to lead Governor Wilson into political affiliations 
which would have destroyed all his hopes of enjoying 
further confidence of the people of the country. 

" The importance attributed to the affair resulted from 
the human consideration, rather than the exact estimates 
that were made of the political importance either of 
Watterson or Harvey. It had been sought to create the 
impression that Wilson was not loyal to his friends; 
and the deep-down motive, doubtless, was to sow in the 
minds of political workers all over the country the sus- 
picion that Wilson's election as President would not be 
to their interest. 

" For a few days, this effect was produced. But, upon 
the general publication of the facts relating to the at- 
tempt to lead him into the ultra-conservative political 
camp, an entirely different character of comment was 
noticed here in the many places where politics is talked, 
even before the state of the weather. 

"The Washington Herald prints an excerpt from a 
Southern paper, which says that, ' judging from the 
Watterson-Harvey matter, if Wilson were to be Presi- 
dent, he would not be " a good-natured man surrounded 
by men who know exactly what they want " ' — para- 
phrasing the now famous epigram of the late Senator 
Dolliver, of Iowa, when he was describing President 
Taft. 



176 WOODROW WILSON 

" It is realized now that that excerpt exactly expresses 
the result that has come from an undoubted ' frame-up,' 
the object of which was to get Wilson in a position so 
that he would have to join the reactionaries. 

" It adds to, although it does not originate, the con- 
viction that the reactionary influences in American po- 
litical life have determined that, if it be within the limits 
of human power, they will defeat Wilson for the nomina- 
tion for President. 

" Political Washington now knows that this plan has 
been laid ; that in its execution mighty forces are enlisted, 
and that men high in social and financial circles are com- 
mitted to it. The facts connected with the Harvey-Wat- 
terson affair, and others brought out by the agitation 
caused by it, clearly point out to experienced observers 
the character of the conflict just now being waged for 
the control of the national conventions of both the great 
political parties. 

" This conflict is Titanic in its proportions. It has 
enlisted on the one side those persons and interests who 
do not want to witness an ' open door ' administration, 
but wish to have the country's politics fall again to the 
level of the days when campaign committees vied with 
each other in getting contributions from financial 
magnates. 

" No honest chronicler of Washington events can es- 
cape the duty of recording that the effect that has been 
produced by the Watterson matter has been distinctly 
beneficial to Governor Wilson. It has served to unmask 
some of the motives that prompt and plans that have 
been laid by the reactionary political forces. The mes- 
sages pour into Washington from the ends of the con- 
tinent that the affair is now understood, and that, 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 177 

instead of injuring Wilson, it has immensely helped 
him." 

Then after a private controversy has caused innumer- 
able public quarrels and foolish conjectures; after can- 
non have belched forth their fire; after the dead and 
wounded have been carried from the battle-field, after 
Colonel Watterson has had spasm after spasm in rapid 
succession, the correspondence of Governor Wilson and 
Colonel Harvey is made public. And all there is of i( 
makes only a very short story. Governor Wilson be- 
lieved that he had hurt Colonel Harvey's feelings, and 
then manfully apologized for it. The Governor explained 
that his only thought with reference to the support of 
Harper's Weekly was to convince the public of the inde- 
pendence of the Weekly's position. 

Treading upon the heels of the publication of the 
Wilson-Harvey letters, comes the final statement (let us 
hope), of Colonel Watterson. He tells us, on February 
1, 1912, that— 

" From first to last I have been acting not only with 
Colonel Harvey's full knowledge and approval but upon 
his insistence; that from the beginning he was most im- 
patient of delay, sending a personal representative to 
me in Atlanta the 21th of December, and again the same 
representative to Richmond the 31st of December, urging 
me to take the initiative; that he was unqualified in in- 



ITS WOODROW WILSON 

dor-sing my statement of the Manhattan Club incident, 
writing forthwith to declare it ' perfect/ and he was with 
me in the New Willard in Washington up to last Sunday 
night, sharing all I did and had done." 

Tf Colonel Watterson gives us an accurate presentation 
of facts here, what are we to think of the assurances of 
friendship which Colonel Harvey gave to Governor Wil- 
son through correspondence, as late as January 5, 1912? 
There can be but one conclusion, and it would be a waste 
of space to print it. 

It is passing strange that every discharge 01 lightning 
emanating from anti-Wilson sources serves to illuminate 
and make more brilliant the character of Woodrow Wil- 
son. Every knock proves to be a boost. His enemies 
criticised him because after twenty-five years of faithful 
service as a teacher, at a modest salary, he made an 
application for a teacher's pension. But this incident 
only proved the school-master-statesman to be " poor in 
purse." Then there is William Randolph Hearst, and 
" men may come and men may go," but Willie Hearst 
" goes on forever." Probably the most exalted compli- 
ment that has yet been paid to Woodrow Wilson's 
statesmanship has been the opposition of the Hearst 
publications to Wilson's candidacy. And best of all the 
assaults of the Kentucky Colonel have established the 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 179 

fact that the special interests can not secure a mortgage 
on the New Jersey Governor. 

The Time, the Place, the Man. — Woodrow Wilson is 
the man. His record indicates as much. We can de- 
termine from it what policies he will adopt and what 
standards he will establish when he becomes President. 
He has been a fearless State spokeman. He would be 
equally as fearless as a " National voice." 

Does not the present chaos and confusion in our legis- 
lative system indicate that we need a modern Justinian, 
who will take on the responsibilities of leadership with- 
out flinching; who will stand to his guns and never 
hedge? You know what Justinian did. There were two 
thousand volumes of statutes when he came into power. 
They were honeycombed with the influence of the favored 
classes. Justinian led the way, and substituted for these 
two thousand volumes a compact little library of fifty 
pamphlets. They contain the germ of all our modern 
law. What we need is a new Justinian to do the stunt 
all over again. 

In Governor Wilson's message to the 1912 New Jersey 
Legislature he said: 

" It is imperative, as it seems to me, that the use of 
the courts of justice by the people should be simplified 
and facilitated. Our legal procedure is too technical, 



180 'WOODROW WILSON 

too complicated, too expensive, too little adapted to the 
use of the poor and unschooled. . . . We are proud of 
our bench : why should we not put ourselves in a position 
to be equally proud of our administration of justice as 
based upon the best reformed models ? " 

" We are clamoring for leadership." Who is best fitted 
to lead? The time has produced a man, a profound 
scholar, a persuasive and convincing orator, a keen 
thinker, a prudent practitioner, an energetic leader, a 
Tilden Democrat, who began with his own State and 
carried out numerous reforms in an " intelligently 
radical " manner. 

His " luminous record," his age fifty-five, his tempera- 
ment, his political purposes and tendencies, and his char- 
acter and convictions point to the conclusion that 
Woodrow Wilson is the only Democratic Presidential 
candidate. He is a Southern-Northerner and a Northern- 
Southerner; — a national favorite son, a Yankee-Doodle- 
Dixie candidate, your Joline letters, your cocked hats, 
your Harvey-Wilson-Watterson controversies, and the 
New York Sun to the contrary notwithstanding! 

Public sentiment will demand his nomination. The 
people will recognize his peculiar fitness for leader- 
ship. Woodrow Wilson will be President of the United 
States. 




Copyright, Underwood, New York. 
WOODROW WILSON IN HIS STUDY. 

••The man of intellect at the top of affairs. This is the aim of all 
■constitutions and revolutions if they have any aim. For the man of true 
intellect is the noble-hearted man withal, the true, just, humane, and 
valiant man. Get him for Governor, all is got. Fail to get him, though 
you had constitutions plentiful as black-berries and a Parliament in every 
village, there is nothing yet got !"— Thomas Carlyle. 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 181 

We return to Carlyle. " The man of intellect at the 
top of affairs. This is the aim of all constitutions and 
revolutions, if they have any aim. For the man of true 
intellect is the noble-hearted man withal, the true, just, 
humane, and valiant man. Get him for Governor all is 
got. Fail to get him, though you had constitutions 
plentiful as blackberries, and a Parliament in every 
village, there is nothing yet got! We shall either learn 
to know a hero, a true Governor and Captain, some- 
what better, when we see him, or else go on to be for- 
ever governed by the unheroic; had we ballot-boxes 
clattering at every street-corner there were no remedy 
in these ! " 

May we be pardoned for drawing a picture of the 
future? May we not imagine Woodrow Wilson, the ideal 
citizen, ex-President, in private life, devoting himself to 
literature which shall forever conserve the interests of 
the American people? 

P.S. — If Woodrow Wilson is elected President of the 
United States, the author invites to a feast the Hon. 
James Smith, Jr., the Hon. James Nugent, the Hon. James 
C. Dahlman, the Hon. A. H. Joline, " for he is an honor- 
able man ; so are they all honorable men," Colonel Henry 



182 WOODROW WILSON 

Watterson, Colonel George Harvey, William Randolph 
Hearst, William F. McCombs, and President Woodrow 
Wilson. The Hon. James Smith, Jr., may name the 
time, the place, the food, and the caterer, the only con- 
dition imposed is that Mr. Smith shall act as toast- 
master. 

AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES 

James Smith, Jr. — 

" Is this a dagger that I see before me, 
The handle toward my hand? 
Come, let me clutch thee. 
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still." 

James Nugent (dreaming of the Neptune Heights in- 
cident) — 

v That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold ; 
What hath quenched them hath given me fire." 

James Dahlman — 

" Merciful powers, 
Restrain in me the cursed thoughts that Nature gives 
way to in repose ! " 

Adrian H. Joline, reading a letter: 

" I have lost my hopes." 

Colonel Watterson — 

" The table 's full." 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OYER 183 

First Apparition. — A cocked hat. 

Second Apparition. — New York Journal and New York 

Sun draped in mourning. 
Third Apparition. — A Kentucky Colonel with a bottle of 

Lithia water in his hand. 

Colonel Harvey — 

" Which of you have done this? " 

William Randolph Hearst — 

" Thou canst not say I did it, 
Never shake thy gory locks at me." 

Colonel Watterson — 

" Then comes my fit again." 



A show of eight Democratic Presidents and William 
Jennings Bryan last, with the Declaration of Independ- 
ence in his hand. 



President Wilson — 

" What I am truly is my poor country's to command." 

William F. McCombs — 

" Such welcome and unwelcome things at once 
'T is hard to reconcile." 



ADDRESS BY GOV. WOODROW WILSON AT THE 

ANNUAL BANQUET OF THE ECONOMIC CLUB 

IN THE HOTEL ASTOR ON MAY 23, 1912 

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: 

I listened with a great deal of interest to the very 
gracious introduction that you have just heard, but with 
some scepticism upon one of the statements. Mr. Mil- 
burn said that everybody here knew what I am, but that 
depends upon which newspaper he has read. Most per- 
sons are so thoroughly uninformed as to my opinions that 
1 have concluded that the only things they have not read 
are my speeches. 

But I want to say that it is with a great deal of 

pleasure that I find myself here to-night, turning out of 

the troubled paths of practical politics to come into a 

place where yon have the purpose and the appearance 

of deliberation. T have never believed entirely that there 

was very much thinking upon general public questions 

done in the City of New York; not because there are not 

some of the finest thinking machines in New York that 

184 



NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 185 

are to be found anywhere, but because the brains of New 
York are so devoted throughout long days to special un- 
dertakings thai there is only the evening, when fatigue 
has conquered you, in which to think about the affairs 
of the country. And, therefore, it seems to me that men 
of eminent success in the iields of business are, above all 
others, under a moral obligation to gel together and talk 
of things which do not concern their own private under- 
takings, rt is refreshing at this particular time to have 
an opportunity to discuss, not personalities, but the ques- 
tions of the day. I was in a New England city, not many 
weeks ago, which had just been visited on the two pre- 
ceding days by two militant candidates for nomination. 
T had occasion at the opening of my speech to say: 
u After what you people have been through the last two 
days, perhaps you would like to know what the questions 
of the day are." 1 was interested to find that instead of 
a mere smile, I got out of that audience that had dropped 
in from the street, a spontaneous cheer. They felt re- 
freshed at the idea thai they might hear something dis- 
cussed which did not have the bitterness of personality 
in it. 

And yet, it is a serious fact, ladies and gentlemen, 
thai it is very difficult to discuss those very questions of 
the day without seeming to bring a touch of passion and 



186 WOODROW WILSON 

bitterness into them. We talk a great deal about the 
radicalism of our time, but the radicalism, if you will 
analyze it, does not consist in the things that are pro- 
posed but in the things that are disclosed. It is in the 
analysis of existing conditions that your public speakers 
seem to be radical. How shall our difficulties be settled 
after we have excited our minds by disclosing those con- 
ditions? We are so busy with the preliminary contro- 
versy with regard to what the real state of the facts is 
that we carry that extreme over into the other area, 
which should be an area of calmness, of deliberation, 
namely, the area of the discussion of what shall be done 
in the circumstances. 

Very little has been said about that, but a great deal 
has been said, and sometimes intemperately said, about 
the real state of affairs. Nowhere, it seems to me, in the 
country more than in New York ought we to be very 
frank with one another; because in New York, taking 
you in the aggregate, you know what the facts are and 
if you are frank with one another and take the public 
into your confidence, you may be instrumental in instruct- 
ing the country concerning what it must found its 
thoughts upon. 

When you discuss the relation between government 
and business, you touch at once the seat of irritation. 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 187 

T have not found a single audience in this vicinity in 
which the business men were not up in arms at being 
interfered with by the action of the Government — in 
which there were not to be found a great many men who 
said, " If the politicians would only let us alone, the coun- 
try would prosper and all business would settle down to 
a sound and steady condition." They have been critics 
of government because government would not let business 
rest and be free. Now, no study of the history of the 
Government can be candidly made which will not lead 
to this conclusion — that the very thing that government 
cannot let alone is business, for business underlies every 
part of our life; the foundation of our lives, of our 
spiritual lives included, is economic. 

I heard a very interesting preacher say several 
months ago, in preaching upon the sequence of the peti- 
tions in the Lord's Prayer, that it was significant that 
our Saviour's first petition was " Give us this day our 
daily bread," for no man can rationally live, worship, or 
love his neighbor on an empty stomach; and if he is in 
doubt where the food is to come from, if he fears he will 
be without work and sustenance, it is impossible that 
he should have a rational attitude toward the life of the 
community or towards his own life. Therefore, it is the 
object of government to make those adjustments of life 



188 WOODROW WILSON 

which will put every man in a position to claim his 
normal rights as a living, human being. 

Government cannot take its hands off of business. 
Government must regulate business, because that is the 
foundation of every other relationship, particularly of 
the political relationship. It is futile, therefore, to have 
the politicians take their hands off. They may blunder 
at the business, but they cannot give it up. They may 
make fundamental mistakes — they will make a great 
many if you do not frankly assist and instruct them — 
but they must go forward whether instructed or not. 

I think one of the few grounds of discouragement in 
our days — for I do not think there are many — is that 
business men and the lawyers who guide business men are 
jealously withholding their counsel from those who try 
to guide affairs, withholding it as those who withdraw 
in suspicion, as if they should say, " We cannot parley 
with those men, their ears are not candidly open to us " ; j 
and so there has grown up on one side and on the other j 
an attitude of distrust which does not augur well for a 
settlement of delicate questions. 

The whole problem of our life, gentlemen, is to under- 
stand one another, the whole problem of politics is to 
get together. Politics is not a mechanical problem, J 
politics is not a problem of setting interests off against ; 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OYER ISO 

each other upon such a plan as that one cannot harm 
the other. The problem of politics is co-operation. The 
organic co-operation of the parts is the only basis for 
just government; unless we come to an understanding, 
there can be no government. No man can hold off from 
affairs and count himself a faithful citizen of the 
Republic. 

1 have been interested in one piece of specula live 
explanation, and to bring this to your attention, I might 
turn aside for a moment. 

One of the chief benefits I used to derive from being 
president of a university was that I had the pleasure 
of entertaining thoughtful men from all over the world. 
I cannot tell you how much dropped into my granary by 
their presence. I had been casting around in my thought 
for something by which to draw several parts of my 
political ideas together when it was my good fortune to 
entertain a very interesting Scotchman who had been 
devoting himself to the philosophical thought of the 
seventeenth century. His talk was so engaging that it 
was delightful to hear him speak of anything, and pres- 
ently there came out of the unexpected region of his 
thought the thing I had been waiting for. He called my 
attention to the fact that in every generation all soils 
of speculation and thinking tend to fall under the formula 



100 WOODROW WILSON 

of the dominant thought of the age that has preceded 
that. For example, after the Newtonian Theory of the 
universe had been developed, almost all thinking tended 
to express itself upon the analogies of the Newtonian 
Theory, and since the Darwinian Theory has reigned 
amongst us, everybody tries to express what he wishes 
to expound in the terms of development and accommoda- 
tion to environment. Now, it came to me as this interest- 
ing man talked, that the Constitution of the United Stales 
had been made under the dominion of the Newtonian 
Theory. You have only to read the papers of the 
Federalist to see it written on every page. They speak 
of the " checks and balances " of the Constitution and use 
to express their idea the simile of the organization of 
the universe, and particularly of the solar system — how 
by the attraction of gravitation the various parts are held 
in their orbits, and represent Congress, the Judiciary, 
and the President as a sort of imitation of the solar 
system. 

No government, of course, is a mechanism ; no me- 
chanical theory will fit any government in the world, 
because governments are made up of human beings, and 
all the calculations of mechanical theory are thrown out 
of adjustment by the intervention of the human will. 
Society is an organism and every government must de- 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 191 

volop according to its organic forces and instincts. I do 
not wish to make the analysis tedious; T will merely ask 
you, after you go home, to think over this proposition: 
that what we have been witnessing for the past hundred 
years is the transformation of a Newtonian Constitution 
into a Darwinian Constitution. The place where the 
strongest will is present will be the seat of sovereignty. 
Tf the strongesl will is present in Congress, then Congress 
will dominate the Government; if the strongest guiding 
will is in the Presidency, the President will dominate the 
Government; if a leading and conceiving mind like Mar- 
shall's presides over the Supreme Court of the United 
States, he will frame the Government, as he did. There 
are no checks and balances in the mechanical sense in 
the Constitution; historical circumstances have deter- 
mined the character of our Government. While we were 
forming the Government — that is to say, down to a hun- 
dred years ago, when the War of 1812 was being fought, 
while we were finding our place among the nations of 
the world, while our most critical relations were over 
foreign relations — the Presidency necessarily stood at 
the front of affairs. You will find all the early Presidents 
directly forming the Government. But after we got our 
standing among the peoples of the world — from the close 
of the War of 1812 down to the beginning of the Spanish- 



192 WOODROW WILSON 

American War, with, the exception of the interval of the 
Civil War — the Presidents count for very little. There 
was then a free, miscellaneous domestic development that 
was insusceptible of guidance; it was spontaneous; it 
sprang up unbidden in every part of the country; the 
place of common counsel was the Congress of the United 
States; and the Congress overshadowed the President. 

One of the things I have always felt that Webster 
and Clay did not see was that they would diminish their 
prestige and power if they left the Senate of the United 
States and entered the Presidency. Why the men who 
were leading the chamber that was dominating the Nation 
should have wished to be in the chair which was over- 
shadowed by that chamber, I have never been able to 
understand. 

But then came the Spanish-American War. Since 
then America has stood up, looked about her, drawn the 
veil of preoccupation from her eyes, and beheld herself 
a great Power among the peoples of the world; and ever 
since that moment the President has, of necessity, become 
the guiding force in the affairs of the country. It was 
inevitable and it now will, no doubt, remain inevitable 
because we are now in the same case with all other gov- 
ernment. We cannot shut our eyes to foreign questions 
— particularly now when we see some prospect of break- 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 193 

ing our isolation by lowering the tariff wall between us 
and other nations; now that we see some possibility of 
flinging our own flag out upon the seas again and taking 
possession of our rightful share of the trade of the world. 

We have found that the private debates of committees 
and the haphazard creations of legislation in bodies which 
no one leads, do not suffice to clear our affairs. We 
must have some central points of guidance. This is the 
adjustment to environment; this is the Darwinization of 
the Government of the United States. There is no vio- 
lence in the process; there is no violence to any principle 
of our Constitution; because, as has been said so often, 
the beauty of that Constitution is that it did not predict 
anything, but left everything possible by the very sim- 
plicity and elasticity of its make-up. If the Constitution 
of the United States had gone into the detail that some 
of our State constitutions go into, we would have to 
change it every ten years, on the average, as we have 
changed them. 

Now, all of this that seems pertinent to the matter 

which I would now bring to your attention, is that there 

must be some guiding and adjusting force — some single 

organ of intelligent communication between the whole 

Nation and the Government which determines the policy 

of that Nation. And, inasmuch as that determination 
13 



194 WOODROW WILSON 

must turn upon economies — that is to say, upon business 
questions, it is absolutely necessary that we should ana- 
lyze our present situation with regard to nothing but 
the facts. 

Perhaps I may sum up my idea in this way: The 
question of statesmanship is a question of taking all the 
economic interests of every part of the country into the 
reckoning. Every time any change is to be made in 
economic policies it must be made by an all-around 
accommodation and adjustment. Is that possible? There 
is no man, there is no group of men, who comprehend the 
entire business interests of this country; it is incon- 
ceivable that there should be. At best we can make a 
very rough and ready approximation of it; and in order 
that you may make even an approximation, it is neces- 
sary that there should be a free play of opinion from 
every part of the country upon the sensitive centre at 
Washington. Just as soon as one part begins to press 
harder than another, then the prospect of justice is un- 
certain, the task of statesmanship is rendered just so 
much the more difficult. All the sensitive parts of the 
Government ought to be open to all the active parts of 
it. So soon as a small group of the active parts organize 
for the purpose of seeing to it that the Government hears 
and heeds only them, then the task becomes impossible. 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 195 

Let uie illustrate it by the tariff, because every busi- 
ness question in this country, whether you think so or 
not, gentlemen, conies back, no matter how much von 
put or the brakes, to the question of (lie tariff. 

I hear on every side that the tariff was the " domi- 
nant" issue. Why, you cannot escape from it no matter 
in which direction you go. The tariff is situated in rela- 
tion to other questions like Boston Common in the old 
arrangement of that interesting city. I remember see- 
ing once, in Life, a picture of a man standing at the 
door of one of the railway stations of Boston and in- 
quiring of a Bostonian the way to the Common. "Take 
any of these streets," was the reply, "either direction." 
Now, as the Common was related to the former winding 
streets of Boston, so the tariff question is related to the 
economic questions of out- day. Take any direction and 
you will sooner or later get to the Common. In discus- 
sing the tariff you may start at the centre and can go 
in any direction you please. 

Let us illustrate by standing at the centre, the Com- 
mon itself. You know as far back as L828, when they 
did not know anything about politics as compared with 
what we know now, a tariff bill was passed which was 
called the "Tariff' of Abominations," because it did not 
have any beginning or end or plan. It had no traceable 



19G ^YOODROW WILSON 

pattern in it. It was as if the demands of everybody 
in the United States had all been thrown indiscriminately 
into one basket and that basket presented as a piece of 
legislation. Tt has been a general scramble and every- 
body who scrambled hard enough had been taken care of 
in the tariff schedules resulting. Tt was an abominable 
thing to the thoughtful men of that day, because no man 
guided it, shaped it, or tried to make an equitable system 
out of it. That was bad enough, but at least everybody 
had an open door through which to scramble for his 
advantage. It was a go-as-you-please, free-for-everybody 
struggle, and anybody who could get to Washington and 
say he represented an important business interest could 
be heard by the Committee on Ways and Means. We 
have a very different state of affairs now. The Com- 
mittee on Ways and Means and the Finance Committee 
of the Senate discriminate by long experience among the 
persons whose counsel they are to take in respect to 
tariff legislation, because there has been substituted for 
this unschooled body of citizens that used to clamor at 
the doors of the Finance Committee and the Committee 
on Ways and Means, one of the most interesting and 
able bodies of expert lobbyists that has ever been devel- . 
oped in the experience of any country — men who know so 
much about the matters they are talking of that you 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 197 

cannot put your knowledge into competition with, theirs. 
Because they overwhelm you with their knowledge of 
detail, you cannot discover wherein their scheme lies. 
They suggest the change of a fraction in a particular 
schedule and explain it to you so plausibly that you 
cannot see that it means millions of dollars additional 
for the consumer of this country. Again, they propose 
to put the carbon in our electric lights in two-foot pieces 
instead of one-foot pieces and you do not see where you 
are getting sold because you are not an expert and they 
are. They have calculated the whole thing beforehand, 
they have analyzed the whole detail and consequences, 
each one in his specialty. As compared with him the 
average unschooled, inexperienced business man has no 
possibility of competition. Instead of the old scramble, 
which was bad enough, you got the present expert con- 
trol of the tariff schedules. Thus the relation between 
business and government becomes not a matter of the 
exposure of all the sensitive parts of the Government to 
all the active parts of the people, but the special impres- 
sion upon them of a particular organized force in the 
business world; moreover, so far as deliberation is con- 
cerned, its action, its motions, its actual purposes are 
secret. Why, it is notorious, for example, that many 
members of the Finance Committee of the Senate did not 



108 WOODROW WILSON 

know the significance of the tariff schedules which were 
reported in the present tariff hill to the Senate, and 
members of the Senate who asked Mr. Aldrich direct 
questions for information were refused the information 
tliey sought, sometimes, I dare say, because he could not 
give it, and sometimes, I venture to say, because dis- 
closure of the information would have embarrassed Hie 
passage of the measure. There were essential papers 
which could not be got at. Take that very interesting 
matter, that will-o-the-wisp, known as "the cost of pro- 
duction." It is hard for any man who has ever studied 
Economics at all to restrain a cynical smile when he is 
told that an intelligent body of his fellow-citizens are 
looking for " the cost of production " as a basis for tariff 
legislation. It is not the same in any one factory for 
two years together. It is not the same in one industry 
from one season to another. It is not the same in one 
country at two different periods. It is constantly eluding 
your grasp. It does not exist as a scientific, demon- 
strable datum fact. But, in order to carry out the extra- 
ordinary program proposed in the late national platform 
of the Republican party, it was necessary to go through 
the motions of finding out what it was. I am credibly 
informed that the Government of the United States re- 
quested several foreign governments, among others the 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 199 

Government of Germany, to supply it with as reliable 
figures as possible concerning the cost of producing cer- 
tain articles corresponding with those produced in the 
United States. The German Government, I understand, 
put the matter in the hands of certain of her manu- 
facturers, who sent in just as complete answers as they 
could procure from their books. The information reached 
our Government during the course of the debate on the 
Paine-Aldrich bill and was transmitted — for the bill by 
that time had reached the Senate — to the Finance Com- 
mittee of the Senate. But I am told — and I have no 
reason to doubt it — that it never came out of the pigeon- 
holes of the Committee. T don't know and that Committee 
does n't know what the information it contained was. 
When Mr. Aldrich was asked about it, he first said it 
was not an official report from the German Government. 
Afterwards he said it was an impudent attempt on the 
part of the German Government to interfere with tariff 
legislation in the United States! But he never said what 
the cost of production disclosed by it was. If he had, it 
is more than likely that some of the tariff schedules 
would have been shown to be entirely unjustifiable. 

Such instances show you just where the centre of 
gravity is — and it is a matter of gravity indeed, for it 
is a very grave matter! It lay during the last Congress 



200 WOODROW WILSON 

in the one person who was the accomplished intermediary 
between the expert lobbyists and the legislation of Con- 
gress. I am not saying this in derogation of the char- 
acter of Mr. Aldrich. It is no concern of mine what 
kind of man Mr. Aldrich is. Now, particularly, that he 
has retired from public life it is a matter of indifference. 
The point is that he, because of his long experience, his 
long handling of these delicate and private matters, was 
the usual and natural instrument by which the Congress 
of the United States informed itself, not as to the wishes 
of the people of the United States or of the rank and 
file of business men of the country, but as to the needs 
and arguments of the experts who came to arrange 
matters with the committees. 

The moral of the whole matter is this: The business 
of the United States is not as a whole in contact with the 
Government of the United States. So soon as it is, the 
matters which now give you, and justly give you, cause for 
uneasiness will disappear. Just so soon as the business 
of this country has general, free, welcome access to the 
councils of Congress, all the friction between business 
and politics will disappear. 

There is another matter to which you must direct 
your attention, whether palatable or not. I do not talk 
about these things because they please my palate; I do 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OYER 201 

not talk about them because I want to attack anybody 
or upset anyone; I talk about them because I wish to 
find out what the facts are, otherwise, I will move like 
a man groping in darkness. If what I say is not true, 
then I am susceptible of correction. 

You will notice from a recent investigation that 
things like this take place: A certain bank invests in 
certain securities. It appears from the evidence that 
the handling of these securities was very intimately con- 
nected with the maintenance of the price of a particular 
commodity. Nobody ought, and in normal circumstances 
nobody would, for a moment think of suspecting the 
managers of a great bank of making such an investment 
in order to help those who were conducting a particular 
business in the United States to maintain the price of 
their commodity; but the circumstances are not normal. 
It is beginning to be believed that in the big business 
of this country nothing is disconnected from anything 
else. I do not mean in this particular instance to which 
I have referred and have in mind to draw any inference 
at all, for that would be unjust; but take any investment 
of an industrial character by a great bank. It is known 
that the directorate of that bank interlaces in personnel 
with ten, twenty, thirty, forty, sixty boards of directors 
of all sorts, of railroads which handle commodities, of 



202 WOODROW WILSON 

great groups of manufacturers which manufacture com- 
modities, and of great merchants that distribute com- 
modities; and the reason that a bank is under suspicion 
with regard to its investments is that it is at least con- 
sidered possible it is playing the game of somebody who 
has nothing to do with banking, but with whom some of 
its directors are connected and joined in interest. The 
ground of unrest and uneasiness, in short, on the part 
of the public at large, is the growing knowledge that 
many large undertakings are interlaced with one another, 
indistinguishable from one another in personnel. 

Therefore, when a small group of men approach Con- 
gress in order to induce the committee concerned to con- 
cur in certain legislation, nobody knows the ramifications 
of the interests which those men represent, and therefore 
it is not the frank and open action of public opinion in 
public counsel, but every man is at any rate snsj)ected 
of representing some other man and it is not known 
where the connection ceases. The whole question, there- 
fore, with regard to the relation of government to busi- 
ness is this, gentlemen, not whether there should be a 
connection, not whether economic legislation should be 
carefully, studiously, prudently considered, but through 
whom is the connection to be maintained? Are the con- 
tacts to be general or special? Are they to be in the 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OYER 203 

nature of general public opinion or in the nature of 
private control? 

I am one of those who have been so fortunately cir- 
cumstanced that 1 have had the opportunity to study the 
way in which these things come about and therefore I do 
not suspect any man has deliberately planned these things. 
1 am not so uninstructed and misinformed as to suppose 
that there is a malevolent combination somewhere to 
dominate the Government of the United States. I merely 
say that by certain processes, now well known, and per- 
haps natural in themselves, there has come about SO 
extraordinary a concentration in the control of business 
in this country (hat (he people are afraid that there will 
be a concent rat ion in the control of government. That 
either is so or is not. If it is so, I beg you to observe 
that T am not a radical in frankly staling it. If i( is 
not so, then I am desirous of your co-operation in order 
that I may be better informed ; for I hold my mind open 
to every kind of information that I can get; and 1 have 
sense enough to know that no one man understands the 
United Stales. 

I have met some gentlemen who professed they did. 
I have even met some business men who professed they 
held in their own single comprehension the business of 
the United States; but I am educated enough to know 



204 WOODROW WILSON 

that they do not. Education has this useful effect, that 
it narrows of necessity the circles of one's egotism. No 
student knows his subject. The most he knows is where 
and how to find out the things he does not know with 
regard to it. That is also the position of a statesman. 
No statesman understands the whole country. He should 
make it his business to find out where he will get the 
information to understand at least a part of it at a 
time when dealing with complex affairs. What we need 
more than anything else, therefore, is experience meet- 
ings, like this — a universal revival of common counsel. 
That 's what investigations by Congress are for. I do 
not understand their primary object to be to get anybody 
in jail or, if it be to find out which men ought to be in 
jail and which ought not, it is with the confident ex- 
pectation that it will be discovered that the vast majority 
ought not to be. But the majority are under suspicion 
until it is discovered who the minority are who ought to 
be in jail. No man could even get through a highly 
reputable company like this without investigation and 
put his finger on the innocent men. Not until every- 
thing about you is known is it possible to separate the 
sheep from the goats; but I have a confident expectation 
that the majority of the sheep would be enormous and 
it would not be necessary to shear them. 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 205 

You remember it was told of a certain United States 
Senator that he was so cautious in his statements that 
he was the despair of every newspaper reporter who 
sought to interview him. On one occasion he was on a 
train which was passing through a grazing country and 
saw a flock of sheep in the field. It was rather late in 
the season. One of his companions remarked, " That 's 
very singular, those sheep are not sheared yet." The 
Senator answered, " So it would appear, looking at them 
from this side." 

Now, the shearing-time has not come in the great matter 
we speak of, and I do not think it will come; but the time 
has come to determine who are responsible for the things 
that ought not to be done, who are to be set free to do 
as they please, for that is the problem of honest business 
and right politics. The problem of politics is, who should 
be restrained and who should not; and the problem of 
business is, who should be restrained and who should not. 
The whole analysis of modern conditions is a discussion 
of control. Do not get impatient, therefore, gentlemen, 
with those who go about preaching " We must return to 
the rule of the people." All they mean, if they mean 
anything rational, is that we must consent to let a ma- 
jority into the game. We must not permit any system 
to go uncorrected which is based upon private under- 



200 WOODROW WILSON 

standings and expert testimony; we must not allow the 
few to determine what the policy of the country is to 
he. It is a question of access to our own Government. 
There are very few men within the sound of my voice 
who have any real access to the Government of the United 
States. It is a matter of common counsel; it is a matter 
of united counsel; it is a matter of mutual comprehen- 
sion ; it is a matter of mutual understanding. 

I wish these matters could he more discussed, but 
it is very difficult to discuss them nowadays; there is 
too much noise in the air. I feel nowadays, not in 
gatherings like this, but in gatherings of the ordinary 
sort, very much as I felt at a certain county fair. The 
grand-stand by the race-track was set back from the 
track, I suppose fifty feet, and a speakers' stand had 
been erected just in front of it, opposite the little pagoda 
where the judges of races stood; and I was put up to 
address the grand-stand. Just back of the grand-stand 
there was a most obstreperous hurdy-gurdy accompany- 
ing the giddy motions of a merry-go-round, and while I 
was trying with my voice to compete with that, they 
started a horse-race behind my back. Not having the 
attention of the grand-stand^ I did what any normal 
man would have done : I stopped and watched the horse- 
race. That is an allegory with regard to our present 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 207 

situation. It is very difficult to address the grand-staud, 
and 1 am glad I got you off in a corner. 

But what is at stake? That's what makes a man's 
thought infinitely sober, and sometimes touches it with 
a certain degree of sadness. What is at slake in this 
business? Why, nothing less than the content, the hope, 
and the life of the people of this country. Say what 
you please, the real basis of disturbance in the field of 
business just now is the suspicion of the great body of 
people in the United States concerning the methods and 
combinations of business; and business cannot breathe 
an atmosphere of suspicion and live. You must, at any 
risk, remove that suspicion, or else there can be no normal 
business in the United States. 

What is that suspicion based upon? It is not a 
contest between the men now in control of business and 
the men now in control of the Government of the United 
Slates. It is a contest between those men and the normal 
life of the country; and there is everything involved. 
How would it suit the prosperity of the United States, 
how would it suit the success of business, to have a people 
that went every day sadly or sullenly to their work? 
How would the future look to you if you felt that the 
aspiration has gone out of most men, the confidence of 
success, the hope that they might change their condition, 



208 WOODROW WILSON 

if there was everywhere the feeling that there was some- 
where covert dictation, private arrangement as to who 
should be in the inner circle of privilege and who should 
not, a more or less systematic and conscious attempt to 
dictate and dominate the economic life of the country? 
Do you not see that just so soon as the old self-confidences 
of America, just so soon as her old boasted advantages 
of individual liberty and opportunity are taken away, 
all the energy of her people begins to subside, to slacken, 
to grow loose and pulpy, without fibre, and men simply 
cast around to see that the day does not end disastrously 
with them? 

For eighteen months now I have been on the inside 
of some things and I owe it to a very elastic temperament 
that I have not become cynical. When I know that cer- 
tain men actually do not possess political liberty because 
other men hold their notes, then I know that normal 
conditions do not exist in the United StateSj and that 
I do know, for I have had it from the mouths of the men 
who suffered thraldom. When I know that men very 
prominent in business dare not tell me what they think 
of some of the circumstances of the organization of 
modern business except privately and under pledge of 
confidence, then I know that something sinister has hap- 
pened in America that has disturbed our intellectual 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 200 

manhood and our political liberty. I have made it my 
business to talk with men who understand the economic 
conditions of the country vastly better than I do, because 
they were concerned in large business transactions, and 
I have almost invariably found them disposed to ask 
me not to say where I got my information. 

In God's name, gentlemen, where does that point! Is 
it possible that there is some financial tyranny obtaining 
in America? It is not necessary that the men who exer- 
cise it should entertain tyrannous purposes; they may be 
unconscious of it; they may feel the same impulse of 
patriotism that you and I feel. Is it possible that we 
have allowed the system to grow up which they use and 
that you and the other men are afraid of them? That 's 
what we have to face; and our stake is the reputation 
and happiness of a great nation. Alas, that we should 
have to ask the question ! Alas, that men who ask it 
should be supposed to be desirous of upsetting the in- 
stitutions of the country! Some of the institutions of 
this country have been upset already not by political 
agitators but by those who have exercised an illegitimate 
control over the Government, over the Legislatures of the 
States of the Union. There, again, I am on ground 
absolutely firm under my feet; for it is the ground of 
knowledge. 1 can furnish you a list of the partners and 



210 WOODROW WILSON 

I say that when that is true, if it can be true, then 
our duty is so plain, so luminous, so attractive, that I 
do not see how any man can turn away from it. It is 
nothing less than to rehabilitate our own self-respect and 
our own liberty; it is nothing less than the opportunity, 
the glorious opportunity, to recover the institutions of 
the United States, to set them up again in their purity 
and integrity and see to it that no man dare breathe a 
single breath of suspicion against them; to see that they 
are not tarnished by the defiling touch of any man with 
unclean hands! 

We have come to an age when constructive states- 
manship is imperative and I thank God for it. Who 
will be the volunteers? Who will volunteer for im- 
mortality? Ah, how men deprive themselves of honor! 
How men live upon husks and throw away the thing that 
nourishes! How men lose the happiness of life by not 
seeing wherein it consists! How men selfishly decline 
to serve, and so find out the infinite reward of unselfish- 
ness! Hoav blind, how self-denying, how stupid we are! 

There are some words about which we are very care- 
ful. There is not much discriminating use of individual 
words in America, but there is one word about which 
we are very careful. We use the word " great " to de- 
scribe anybody who has been talked about. It does not 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 211 

require character to be great; it requires only size of 
achievement. You may throttle everybody else and get 
everything they own and be " great." You may be great 
and be feared; but there is one word which we bestow 
with great discrimination and that is the word "noble." 
You cannot be noble without character, you cannot be 
noble and not be loved; you cannot be noble and not 
serve somebody; you cannot be noble and spend every 
energy you have on yourself. 

Who are candidates for this open peerage of America? 
Who desires the patent of nobility amongst us? Only 
those who will enter upon this great enterprise of re- 
covering the ancient purity and simplicity of our politics. 
We can do it by mere candor; we can do it by merely 
discussing the facts and meeting them. We can do it 
without disturbing one of the legitimate transactions 
of business. 

1 am always afraid that business men who are un- 
easy have something to be uneasy about; or that, if there 
is nothing in itself that justifies their uneasiness, per- 
haps they do not comprehend what their real situation 
is. You can find it out in this way. Take the experience 
in Wisconsin. The men who were in control of the 
public-service corporations of Wisconsin fought the plans 
of that State for the regulation of such corporations as 



212 WOODROW WILSON 

they would have fought the prospect of ruin; and what 
happened? Regulation of the most thorough-going sort 
was undertaken and the result was that the securities 
of those companies were virtually guaranteed to pur- 
chasers. Instead of being speculative in value, they were 
known to be absolutely secure investments, because a 
disinterested agency, a commission representing the com- 
munity looked into the conditions of this business, 
guaranteed that there was not water enough in it to 
drown in, guaranteed that there was business enough 
and plant enough to justify the charges and to secure a 
return of legitimate profit; and every thoughtful man 
connected with such enterprises in Wisconsin now takes 
off his hat to the men who originated the measures once 
so much derided. The chief benefit was, not regulation, 
but frank disclosure and the absolutely open and frank 
relationship between business and government. Thai 's 
the advantage. The regulation may in some particulars 
have been unwise and hasty, but the relationship was 
absolutely normal and wholesome. That is the way, no 
doubt, in which a satisfactory relationship is going to 
be restored between the business of the country and the 
Government of the United States — by frank disclosure 
and well-considered readjustment. 

Of course, there must be, first, a flood of released water. 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 213 

I have sometimes wondered whether that great, obstruct- 
ing " standpat " dam was not erected to restrain the re- 
lease of watered stock. You must let it out sooner or 
later; and the sooner the better, because if we do it. 
soon, we will do it in good temper, and if late, there is 
danger it may be done in ill-temper. 

What is the alternative, gentlemen? You have heard 
the rising tide of Socialism referred to here to-night. 
Socialism is not growing in influence in this country as 
a programme. It is merely that the ranks of protestants 
arc being recruited. Socialism is not a programme but 
a protest against the present state of affairs in the 
Tinted States. If it becomes a programme, then we shall 
have to be very careful how we purpose a competing pro- 
gramme. I do not believe in the programme of Socialism. 
If any man can say he knows anything from the past, 
perhaps he can say that the programme of Socialism would 
mil work; but there is no use saying what won't work 
unless you can say what will work. 

A splendid sermon was once preached by Dr. (mai- 
mers on "The Expulsive Power of a New Affection." If 
yon want to oust Socialism, you have got to propose 
something better. It is a case, if you will allow me to 
fall into the language of the vulgar, of " put up or shut 
up." Yon cannot oppose hopeful programmes by negations. 



214 WOODItOW WILSON 

Every statesman who ever won anything great in any self- 
governing country was a man whose programme would 
stand criticism and had the energy behind it to move 
forward against opposition. It is by constructive pur- 
pose that you are going to govern and save the United 
States, and therefore a man ought to welcome the high 
privilege of addressing an audience like this. You can 
analyze, you can form purposes. Many of you do know 
what is going on. You know what part is wrong and 
what is right, if you have not lost your moral perspective, 
and you know how the wrong can be stopped. 

Very well, then, let us get together and form a con- 
structive programme, and then let us be happy in the 
prospect that in some distant day men shall look back to 
our time and say that the chief glory of America was 
not that she was successfully set up in a simple age 
when mankind came to begin a new life in a new land, 
but that, after the age had ceased to be simple, when 
the forces of society had come into hot contact, when 
there was bred more heat than light, there were men 
of serene enough intelligence, of steady enough self-com- 
mand, of indomitable enough power of will and purpose 
to stand up once again and say : " Fellow-citizens, we 
have come into a great heritage of liberty; our heritage 
is not wealth; our distinction is not that we are rich in 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OYER 215 

power; our boast is, rather, that we can transmute gold • 
into the life blood of a free people." Then it will be 
recorded of us that we found out again what seemed 
the lost secret of mankind— how to translate power Into 
freedom, how to make men glad that they were rich, how 
to take the envy out of men's hearts that others were 
rich and they for a little while poor, by opening the gates 
of opportunity to every man and letting a flood of gracious 
guiding light illuminate the path of every man that is 
born into the world. 



SPEECH MADE BY HON. JOHN W. WESCOTT, 
OF CAMDEN, NEW JERSEY, BEFORE THE 
DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION, BAL- 
TIMORE, ON JUNE 28, 1912 

New Jersey, once bound, but, by the moral energy 
and intellectual greatness of a single soul, now free, 
comes to this historic convention, in the glory of her 
emancipation, to participate in your deliberations, aid 
in formulating your judgments, and assist in executing 
your decrees. The New Jersey delegation is not em- 
powered to exercise the attributes of proprietorship, but 
is commissioned to represent the great cause of Democ- 
racy and to offer you, as its militant and triumphant 
leader, a scholar, not a charlatan ; a statesman, not a 
doctrinaire; a profound lawyer, not a splitter of legal 
hairs; a political economist, not an egotistical theorist; 
a practical politician, who constructs, modifies, restrains 
without disturbance and destruction; a resistless de- 
bater and consummate master of statement, not a mere 

sophist; a humanitarian, not a defamer of characters and 

216 



NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 217 

lives; a man whose mind is at once cosmopolitan and 
composite of America; a gentleman of unpretentious 
habits, with the fear of God in his hear! and the love: 
of mankind exhibited in every act of his life; above all 
a public servant who has been tried to the uttermost 
and never found wanting — peerless, matchless, uncon- 
querable, the ultimate Democrat, Woodrow Wilson. 

New Jersey has reasons for her course. Lei us not 
be deceived in our premises. Campaigns of vilification, 
corruption, and false pretense have lost (heir usefulness. 
The evolution of national energy is low aids a more in- 
telligent morality in politics and in all other relations. 
The line of cleavage is between those who treat politics 
as a game and those who regard it as the serious busi- 
ness of Government. The realignment of political parties 
will be on this principle. The situation admits of no 
compromise. The temper and purpose of the American 
public will tolerate no other view. The indifference of 
the American people to politics has disappeared. Any 
platform and any candidate not: conforming to this vast: 
social and commercial behest will go down to ignominious 
defeat at the polls. Platforms art' too often mere his- 
toric rubbish heaps of broken promises. Candidates are 
too frequently the unfortunate creatures of arrangements 
and calculations. Exigencies, conditions, national needs 



218 WOODROW WILSON 

and necessities make better platforms and produce 
greater leaders than does the exercise of proprietorship. 
A disregard of these premises will bring our dreams 
crashing in ruins next November. 

Again, the eternal conflict between equal opportunity 
and special privilege is upon us. Our fathers wrote the 
issue of that struggle in our Constitutions. They de- 
clared all men to be free and equal. In a single century 
that principle developed the North American continent, 
leavened the world with its beneficence, inspired all na- 
tions with hope, and made the United States the asylum 
of the world. Yet America, at this very hour, presents 
the most stupendous contradiction in history — a people 
politically free while economically bound by the most 
gigantic monopolies of all time and burdened by a system 
of taxation which exploits millions to enrich a few. We 
have preserved the forms of freedom, but are fast losing 
its substance. The evils of this condition are felt in a 
thousand ways throughout the land. Therefore it is that 
America is awake. Therefore it is that a mistake in 
our premises will be fatal. Therefore it is that the 
situation, national exigency, the crisis, call for the right 
man. Therefore it is that a silent and resistless revolu- 
tion demands our patriotic and best judgment. Indi- 
viduals are as nothing and personal ambitions are worse 



AM) NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 219 

than nothing. If the chosen candidate fails in any sense 
or in any degree full and completely to meet the call of 
the Nation, he is doomed to defeat. 

Men are known by what they say and do. They are 
known by those who hate and oppose them. Many years 
; ago Woodrow Wilson said : " No man is great who thinks 
himself so, and no man is good who does not try to 
secure the happiness and comfort of others." This is 
the secret of his life. Later, in his memorable effort to 
retain good scholarship and democracy in Princeton 
University, he declared: "The great voice of America 
does not come from seats of learning. It comes in a 
murmur from the hills and woods, and the farms and 
factories and the mills, rolling on and gaining volume 
until it comes to us from the homes of common men. Do 
these murmurs echo in the corridors of our universities? 
I have not heard them." A clarion call to the spirit that 
now moves America. Later he shouted : " I will not cry 
peace so long as there is sin and wrong in the world." 
Here is the very soul of the silent revolution now solidify- 
ing sentiment and purpose in our common country. 

The deeds of this moral and intellectual giant arc 
known to all men. They accord, not with the shams and 
false pretenses of politics, but make national harmony 
with the millions of patriots determined to correct the 



220 WOODIIOW WILSON 

wrongs of plutocracy and re-establish the maxims of 
American liberty in all their regnant beauty and prac- 
tical effectiveness. New Jersey loves Woodrow Wilson 
not for the enemies he has made. New Jersey loves him 
for what he is. All evil is his enemy. The influences 
that have opposed him have demonstrated his availability 
and fitness on the one hand, and exposed the unavail- 
ability and unfitness of some others on the other hand. 
The influence thai lias opposed him blights and blasts 
any cause and any person it espouses. That influence has 
appealed to the sordid, low, and criminal. That influence 
fattens on ignorance and avarice. The man that accepts 
its aid, so far as his public usefulness is concerned, would 
be more fortunate had a millstone been tied about his 
neck and he had been cast into the depths of the sea. 
New Jersey believes that the opposition to Governor 
Wilson, such as it has been, necessitates and secures his 
triumph. 

Similar necessities, motives, and causes impel all men 
alike. The same necessities, motives, and causes which 
draw, as by omnipotence, substantially all New Jersey 
about, this great and good man, are identically the same 
necessities, motives, and causes that are in resistless 
motion in every State in the Union. Its solidarity cannot 
be disintegrated. False argument falls broken against 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 221 

it. A revolution of intelligent and patriotic millions is 
the expression of these necessities, motives, and causes. 
Therefore, New Jersey argues that Woodrow Wilson is 
the only candidate who can not only make Democratic 
success a certainty, but secure the electoral vote of al- 
most every State in the Union. New Jersey will endorse 
his nomination by a majority of one hundred thousand 
of her liberated citizens. We are not building for a 
day, or even a generation, but for all time. Let not the 
belief that any candidate may succeed rob us of sound 
judgment. What would it profit the Democratic party 
to win now, only to be cast out four years hence? The 
Democratic party should be commissioned to carry on a 
great constructive programme having for its end a com- 
plete restoration of the doctrine of equal rights and 
equal opportunity — without injury and wrong to any one. 
Providence has given us, in Woodrow Wilson, the mental 
and moral equipment to accomplish this reincarnation 
of Democracy. 

New Jersey believes that there is an omniscience in 
national instinct. That instinct centers in Woodrow 
Wilson. How can his power in every State be explained? 
He has been in political life less than two years. He 
has had no organization, only a practical ideal, the re- 
establislimenl of equal opportunity. Not his deeds alone, 



222 WOODROW WILSON 

not his immortal words alone, not his personality alone, 
not his matchless powers alone, but all combined, compel 
national faith and confidence in him. Every crisis evolves 
its master. Time and circumstance have evolved Wood- 
row Wilson. The North, the South, the East, and the 
West uuite in him. Deep calls to deep. Height calls to 
height. 

From peak to peak, the rattling clouds among, 
Leaps the live thunder. Not from oue lone cloud, 
But everv mountain now hath found a tongue 
And Jura answers through her misty shrouds 
Back to the joyous Alps, who call to her aloud. 

The lightning-flash of his genius has cleared the 
atmosphere. We now know where we are. The thunder 
of his sincerity is shaking the very foundations of wrong 
and corruption. 

If Providence could spare a Washington to lay the 
foundations of the United States of America; if Provi- 
dence could spare a Jefferson to make Democracy a liv- 
ing reality; if Providence could spare a Lincoln to unite 
the States in impregnable unity and brotherhood, New 
Jersey appeals to this convention to give the Nation 
Woodrow Wilson, that he may open the gates of oppor- 
tunity to ever}" man, woman, and child under our flag, 
by reforming abuses and thereby teaching them, in his 



matchless words, " to release their energies intelligently 
that peace, justice, and prosperity may reign." 

New Jersey rejoices, through her freely chosen repre- 
sentatives, to name for the Presidency of the United 
* States the Princeton schoolmaster, Woodrow Wilson. 



SUPPLEMENT 

" We count it no exaggeration to declare our opinion 
that no other American has approached more nearly to 
Jefferson and Lincoln in wonderful facility and felicity 
of stating the problems and their solution, which touch 
real Americanism from every angle." — From an editorial 
on Woodrow Wilson, in the Philadelphia North American. 

" A conservative with a move on." — Kansas City Times. 

" Present indications are that Governor Wilson could 
carry the United States by a safe majority in the elec- 
toral college, without the aid of New York or Connecticut. 
He is exceedingly popular in the old Republican States 
of the upper Mississippi Valley, and in the Rocky Moun- 
tain and Pacific Coast regions. One of the commonest 
remarks in that section of the country invariably begins : 
' If the Democrats nominate Woodrow Wilson. . . .' Men- 
tion the name of the Governor of New Jersey to an in- 
surgent Republican and he beams with ready response 
to the suggestion. As one studies the map Governor 
Wilson could probably carry every State west of the 
Mississippi River and east of it. He would sweep in 
enough electoral votes north of the Ohio River to make 
some of the strength of the old Solid South superfluous." 
— Springfield, Massachusetts, Republican. 

J 22 4 



NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 225 

" Governor Woodrow Wilson is the strongest Demo- 
cratic probability now in the field." — Seattle, Washington, 
Post Intelligencer. 

" One after another Republicans in Washington, D. C, 
remark that if the Democrats shall nominate Governor 
Woodrow Wilson for President Mr. Taft will find it 
difficult to secure a re-election." — Dubuque, Iowa, Herald. 

" Where did the Wilson boom start? It started in the 
hearts of the people who want a man who will stand 
with and for them." — Duluth, Minnesota, Herald. 

" We can win with Wilson." — Augusta, Georgia, 
Herald. 

" I regard Governor Wilson as a great conservative 
force because he is neither a radical, a standpatter, nor 
an extremist. He is the embodiment of safe, sound, and 
progressive policy." — William G. McAdoo. 

" Cleveland was loved for the enemies that he made. 
Woodrow Wilson is loved for the friends he has refused 
to make." — Columbia, South Carolina State. 

" President Woodrow Wilson of Princeton may soon 
be President Woodrow Wilson of the U. S. A." — Boston 
Glooe. 

" If you are a Progressive do something for Wilson. 
Don't let the political footpads sandbag him. Organize 
a Wilson club; give the Wilson sentiment a chance to 
express itself." — Boston Common. 



226 WOODRO^Y WILSON 

" The people, East and West, have met Dr. Wilson 
face to face. They have heard him talk and have taken 
his measure as a man of sincerity, honesty, and capacity 
in political thinking. They have his record as Governor 
of New Jersey as an earnest of what he can do in po- 
litical action. So far as Democracy will suit at all, his 
particular brand rings true, and lie gains strength rather 
than weakness by the criticism and opposition of his 
party brethren who stand in reactionary ranks." — Port- 
land, Oregon, Telegram. 

" I am supporting Governor Wilson, because I believe 
he is the strongest man the Democrats can get for the 
office of President. I regard him as a better man for 
the place than Harmon because I believe he will be better 
able to control the radical element in the party." — Judge 
James G. Tucker of Mt. Clemens Michigan. 

" I believe that we ought to nominate Woodrow Wilson, 
and I believe that we can elect him." — United States 
Senator John Sharp Williams. 

Senator Gore, of Oklahoma, who has been campaign- 
ing in his State in behalf of Governor Wilson, criticises 
the opponents of the New Jersey governor in the follow- 
ing statement, following the Harvey-Wilson-Watterson 
affair : 

" This whole incident is a bubble, not a billow. It is 
not surprising, however, that the opponents of Wilson, 
being the friends of other candidates should mistake the 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 227 

one for the other. It seems that the head and heart of 
the Governor's offending is that he told the truth. 

" No honest man can accept an office, least of all, the 
presidency, with a lie upon his conscience or his conduct. 
No one has plenary power to select either his friends or 
his opponents in politics. To decline tendered aid and 
alliance is a most difficult and delicate task. Few men 
have the courage and candor to do this when battle is 
joined. Teradventure, the Governor may have learned 
by experience that there are men who would undertake 
to capitalize gratitude and then commercialize influence. 
He may have thought it just and timely to foreclose the 
possibility of such an attempt hereafter. 

" The critics of Governor Wilson should tell the public 
frankly whether their candidates would assume such an 
obligation as the Governor declines, and, if so, whether 
their candidate would disregard or w»uld discharge such 
obligations. The American people have a right to know 
the text and terms of all the mortgages and deeds of 
trust, either expressed or implied, under which a can- 
didate for the Presidency may labor, and they have an 
equal right to know the names of all the mortgages and 
beneficiaries of the trust. I would rather see Governor 
Wilson defeated and his heart an open book, ' that all 
who run may read,' than to see him triumphant with a 
skeleton in his political closet which had been concealed 
from the eyes of a confiding public." 



" Realizing the importance of solidifying the Demo- 
< vatic sentiment in the West in favor of that candidate 
who best represents the Democratic conscience and who 
is most in sympathy with the Progressive policies for 



228 WOODROW WILSON 

which the West stands, I have come to the conclusion 
to regard Woodrow Wilson as the man, who, above all 
other candidates, voices the convictions and the aspira- 
tions of the American Democracy. 

" It is evident that the big interests have isolated 
Wilson from all the other candidates and have made 
him the special object of attack. There is all the more 
reason, therefore, that the Democrats of Nevada and the 
West should recognize him as the true progressive leader 
and rally to his support." — United States Senator 
Francis Newlands of Nevada. 

WILSON CLUB HEAD ATTACKS WATTERSON 

SAYS governor might have been warned by the cleve- 

LAND-WATTERSON RUPTURE 

William Cabell Bruce, President of the Wilson Club 
of Baltimore, which numbers 700 members, said of the 
Watterson letter: 

" No reasonable man, it seems to me, can read this 
statement without harboring the thought too, that, if 
Governor Wilson had received letters from enemies of 
Colonel Watterson in Kentucky, warning Governor Wil- 
son against him, perhaps these letters would have been 
timely. 

" The caprice which marked the rupture that brought 
the class social as well as political intimacy between 
President Cleveland and Colonel Watterson to an end, 
might well have admonished Governor Wilson that, bril- 
liant as are, the literary and rhetorical bubbles thrown 






AND NEW JERSEY MADE OYER 229 

off from time to time by the vivid imagination of Colonel 
Watterson, he altogether lacks the solid and sale qualities 
which make up a trustworthy counsellor." 



The Kansas City Star, which has been a strong advo- 
cate of Governor Woodrow Wilson's candidacy, said, 
editorially: 

" Regarding the Wilson-Harvey incident these facts 
seem apparent: In view of the affiliations of Harper's 
Weekly, doubtless Governor Wilson felt that the support 
of the editor, his friend, Colonel Harvey, was putting him 
in a false light with the country. Doubtless, too, it might 
be wished that the Governor had not found it necessary 
to convey any such intimation to Colonel Harvey. A 
man may have well-meaning friends whose assistance lie 
would like to get along without, but which he must 
simply accept as one of the handicaps to be carried as 
best he can. 

" Nevertheless, the American people are not inclined 
to be critical in dealing with effective public- men whose 
purposes they believe to be right. 

"At Princeton, Woodrow Wilson took his life in his 
hands and struggled for Democracy within the University. 
As Governor of New Jersey he has made a tine record in 
wresting from a divided and reluctant Legislature :i 
body of progressive laws. 

"In all his relations he has shown himself a strong 
fighter for progressive ideas. His energy, courage, and 
ability have made him a national leader in the forward 
movement." 



230 WOODROW WILSON 

" At the beginning of his statement about the now fa- 
mous interview between himself and Col. Harvey and 
Governor Wilson, Colonel Watterson said : ' The con- 
ference between us in my apartment at the Manhattan 
Club was held to consider certain practical measures re- 
lating to Governor Wilson's candidacy.' Is n't it now 
time that we heard from Colonel Watterson as to what 
those practical measures were? Did they relate to the 
rasing of campaign funds? Had they to do with the 
desirability of Governor Wilson's making the acquaint- 
ance of certain financiers of influence in the past history 
of the Democratic party? Is it true that Colonel Wat- 
terson exclaimed that in the long run money and not 
patriotism wins campaigns? Upon all these questions we 
should have a little more light." — New York Evening 
Post. 

" When Colonel Harvey, apparently overcome by Gov- 
ernor Wilson's austerity, put the direct question to Gov- 
ernor Wilson whether the support of Harper's Weekly 
was doing him an injury, and received from Governor 
Wilson the cold rejoinder that it was, I was both sur- 
prised and shocked." — Henry Watterson. 

" The World is surprised too. But we cannot bring 
ourselves to say that we are shocked. 

" For a Presidential candidate to tell an influential 
supporter more than five months before the nominating 
convention and over nine months before the election that 
his support is no longer desired is surprising. 

" For a man to tell an intimate friend that his loyal 
and long-continued work in his behalf is no longer a 
service but an injury is painfully unpleasant. 

" But we can see nothing shocking in giving this frank 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 231 

answer to a plain question. Presumably Colonel Harvey 
wanted the truth when he asked the question. Presum- 
ably Governor Wilson believed he was telling the truth 
when he answered. 

" ' Ingratitude! ' arises the chorus of Governor Wilson's 
shocked opponents. We should be far from shocked even 
if we could discover ingratitude in Governor Wilson's 
position. 

" Ingratitude is one of the rarest virtues of public life. 
' Gratitude ' is responsible for many of our worst political 
abuses. Upon ' gratitude ' is built every corrupt po- 
litical machine; upon 'gratitude' is founded the power 
of every ignorant and unscrupulous boss ; in ' gratitude ' 
is rooted the system of spoils, of log-rolling, of lobbying. 
Lorimer was elected by ' gratitude,' Payne- Aldrich bills 
are passed for ' gratitude,' Harriman campaign funds are 
raised for ' gratitude.' The great majority of the voices 
which are denouncing Wilson's ingratitude are the voices 
of machine politicians, chief among whose stock in trade 
is this ' gratitude.' " — New York World. 

" It is no time for Democrats to think of falling back 
on a weak or unknown man. Their strongest will be 
none too strong. For the country has not merely to be 
held to the Democracy, it has yet to be won over to it. 
The mid-way elections of 1010 furnished proof that the 
people are ready to be converted, but they are still look- 
ing for the man to do it. A mere humdrum Democrat, 
with nothing against him, perhaps, but nothing for him, 
' icily regular, splendidly null/ ought not to be considered 
for a moment. What the Democratic opportunity calls 
for is a candidate of tempered courage and forth-putting 
energy. To draw back now, to hesitate, to refuse to put 



232 WOODROW WILSON 

the best foot forward, to adopt a temporizing policy and 
put up with a compromising leader, would be to throw 
away the entire advantage of position. 

" Considerations like these are what make the appeal of 
Governor Wilson to his party so great at the present 
juncture. Timid men inevitably drop away from him, 
with many head-shakings, but the question is whether the 
party and the party situation do not demand a bold and 
positive man. Governor Wilson's independence and 
courage are beyond question. He has a singular power 
of expression. His voice is comparatively new to the 
mass of his countrymen, so that he has the better chance 
of a hearing for what he has to say. And that he has 
ideas, convictions, and definite purposes, he has abund- 
antly shown. He has seemed, also, to gather up in his 
own person the reasonably progressive and reformatory 
tendencies of his party. The indications are clear that, 
if he were to be put at the head of the Democratic cam- 
paign, he would not only raise it to a high level oratoric- 
ally, but would give it push and vigor from start to 
finish. His candidacy is admittedly distasteful to the 
ordinary run of politicians. He does not speak their 
language and they know in their hearts that they cannot 
• do business ' with him. Time-servers and over-cautious 
men are not drawn to Wilson. He irritates and alarms 
them. But there can be no question that there is a 
stronger popular movement for him than for any other 
candidate. If there is such a thing as a Democratic 
current, it to-day sets powerfully for W'ilson. And the 
only question is whether the party managers will try to 
stop it by political manipulation, or whether they will 
have the sense to let it sweep on and give them a Presi- 
dential nominee who will be a true leader, with that bold- 



AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 233 

ness and force which the time requires and without which 
there can be nothing but failure." — New York Evening 
Post. 

On January 29, 1912, Hon. William Jennings Bryan 
wrote the author as follows : " Dr. Woodrow Wilson 
combines to a larger extent than usual the qualities of 
an instructor with the tastes and public spirit of the 
statesman." 

In a recent issue of The Commoner, Mr. Bryan said 
editorially : 

" A realignment of political friends is necessary when- 
ever a fundamental change takes place on important, 
questions. The most conspicuous Bible illustration of a 
fundamental change in life is found in the experience of 
Saul of Tarsus, who became Paul. He was as honest 
when he persecuted the Christians as he was afterward 
when he risked shipwreck, stripes, and even death to 
preach the gospel. He doubtless retained many of his 
personal friends, and some of them may have undergone, 
later, the same change of heart, but he would hardly 
have entrusted to an unrepentant persecutor of the Chris- 
tians the planning of one of his missionary tours. His 
epistles, after the change, were not to his early friends, 
but to the brethren of the church. 

Colonel Harvey has shown no signs of conversion ; if he 
communes with Ananiases it is not with any conscious- 
ness of blindness. He has seen no new light; and 
when he does, he will feel so ashamed of his life-long fight 



234 WOODROW WILSON 

against progressive democracy that his first desire will 
be to bring forth fruits meet for repentance — not to as- 
sume leadership. It must pain Governor Wilson to break 
with old friends, but the breaks must necessarily come 
unless he turns back or they go forward. ' A man is 
known by the company he keeps ' — and he cannot keep 
company with those going in opposite directions. Gov- 
ernor Wilson must prepare himself for other desertions 
— they will distress him but there is abundant consola- 
tion in the consciousness of duty done. It should matter 
little to him whether he reaches the White House or not 
— that depends on circumstances which he can but par- 
tially control — the joy that comes from the faithful 
rendition of service surpasses any satisfaction that one 
can derive from the gratification of political ambition 
— a joy that makes one strong enough to endure even 
the severest of strains, namely, the breaking of the bonds 
of friendship." 






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